Deciminalize prostitution will help society

Devlin was a legal moralist, he believed in a strong moral code, and he insisted that law should be used to prohibit behaviour that conflicts with dominate morality. Devlin sought to seek a contemporary society , which in a city-state is pr

After understanding and grasping both Devlin and Mill’s viewpoints, and examining victim-less crimes with specific regards to prostitution, one can come to terms with at least one of the parties. With look at common morality, one can gather that each person has different views and reactions to certain issues, therefore how can morality alone be basis for criminal code? Law and morality conflict with one another, and must be balanced, which Mill indeed proposes. There is such thing as common morality, but it is miniscule, because there are universal reactions, for example, people do not stop at a stop sign just because it is the law, but rather because a common knowledge that it is the right thing to do.

Many people, including Devlin and the church would state that prostitution is immoral, but there are certain things that any civilized person will agree are immoral (common morality) such as: murder, rape, child abuse, theft, etc. These are immoral because they infringe on the rights of another individual, and that individual has no choice in the matter. With prostitution a man chooses to pay, the woman agrees to take his money. The only reason it is considered a crime is because it makes someone else feel uncomfortable.

Victim-less crimes are crimes in which there is no victim; or, perhaps, nobody who regards herself or himself as a victim. Individuals should have the right to personal determination, for there is no criminal sanction for attempting suicide or for injuring oneself and, by any means the arguments for criminalizing others who injure someone with his or her consent; these should not affect a person’s liberty to engage in sex. In addition, when the laws are enforced against ethnic minority members, the middle and upper class members gain power and feel that the law is protecting them and serving its true purpose, because it supports the myth that the lower class individuals are the ones who ostracize themselves from a norm or from the accepted standards of society. It would be naive to suggest that legalization would immediately lead to the disappearance of all prostitution crime; a cautious approach to decriminalization might bring some reduction in crime, and reductions in tension between the police and certain groups in society. There are people who believe indulgence in sexual pleasure is as good a life as any other, therefore society should find nothing offensive of the practice of it in public or in private. Moreover, any health problems draw from prostitution could then be treated primarily as an educational, medical and social problem, with greater resources and without the long process by the criminal sanction. The existing criminal prohibitions may be bringing more disadvantages than advantages. Respect for individual liberty should place a heavy burden of proof on those who would wish to criminalize prostitution.

Devlin’s argument is that a society is entitled to use the criminal law against behaviour, which might threaten its existence; that there is a common morality, which ensures the structure of society; that any movement away from this common morality is capable of affecting society harmfully; therefore it may be correct and necessary to punish immoral behaviour. Devlin must assume that immorality must be defined and measured according to the feelings of ordinary people. If certain behaviour suggests feelings of intolerance, and disgust among ordinary members of society, that is a sufficient indication that the behaviour threatens the common morality and is therefore a proper object of the criminal law. The difficulty is that these feelings of ordinary people may not be moral, but the expression of prejudice, and what the ordinary persons may perceive to be evil, may indeed be evil, and should not risk condemning the feelings that erupted by chance that it may be good, because then a chance of destroying good may arise. A theory about morality and the criminal la

Some topics in this essay:
Wolfenden Report, Mother Nature, Nevertheless Mill’s, Devlin Mill’s, Germany Prostitution, Patrick Devlin, Basically Devlin, Canadian Law, Basically Mill, God Devil, common morality, criminal law, public eye, harm themselves, victim-less crimes, “open marriage”, sex workers, criminal sanction, feelings ordinary people, principle self-sufficiency, free thinker, society pass judgment,