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Whether Hawaii should legalise prostitution was the question before this 1996 episode, prompted in part by legislation introduced in the state legislature. State Representative Mary Jane McMurdo, appearing by telephone, described a bill she had introduced that would allow counties to permit brothels under Nevada-style regulations, including mandatory weekly health testing for workers and criminal penalties for pimps and for practitioners who knowingly continued to work while HIV-positive. Tracy Ryan, spokesperson for the group Hawaii Opposes Prostitution Enforcement, argued from a civil-liberties position that the state has no legitimate authority to criminalise consensual sexual activity between adults and that the existing law served no demonstrable purpose. Kenneth Tano, a captain in the Honolulu Police Department's Vice Division, described the practical difficulties of enforcement, noting that fines are treated as a cost of doing business and that the absence of meaningful sanctions limits deterrence. Pam Vessels, an outreach worker at the Waikiki Health Center, opposed legalisation on the grounds that prostitution constitutes violence against women; she instead advocated decriminalising the workers themselves while investing in rehabilitation programmes. The guests agreed that the current enforcement regime is inadequate; they disagreed on whether the remedy should be legalisation, decriminalisation, or stronger enforcement.
Transcript
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Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
