NCJ Number
163001
Date Published
1995
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article focuses on prostitutes and how they are very narrowly stereotyped in the media.
Abstract
For women who work in the sex trade, prostitute or hooker becomes their main identity through the media. There is little concern about the organization of the trade, how poverty might be a motivation to work as a prostitute, or how prostitution can be very violent. This article suggests that the characterization of the crime of prostitution in the media is part of the crime itself. How the media deal with women who work as prostitutes is very much an issue of dealing with people who are acceptable and people who are not acceptable. Women who work as prostitutes, considered unacceptable, are presented in the media as hookers engaged in deviant women's work. The media ignore the role of men, and can gloss over the violence and exploitation of the trade, focusing on deviance as the critical issue. The media can influence crime prevention strategies by highlighting prostitution as a problem and media coverage can become a strategy itself when they choose to do such things as publicize the names of prostitutes' customers. By not questioning the deeper causes of prostitution, the media can uphold the legitimacy of the law, how it is policed, and why a moralistic law remains in effect. The press can be used against prostitution but can also become criminalized itself, as when it publishes personals ads which seem to solicit prostitution. Figures, notes