Criminalisation of sex workers.

political analyst

An article from last year:

https://www.joe.ie/politics/difficult-cases-sex-workers-jailed-living-together-must-reviewed-government-warned-677741

Last November, Gardaí raided a house in Newbridge, Co Kildare where Adrina Podaru, 25 and Ana Tomascu, 20 had been living and working together. Both of the women, who were from Romania, were sex workers and Podaru had been pregnant. No significant amounts of money were found, and when the women appeared before Naas district court this summer the judge told the court that the women had not been “forced into this position.” Both of them were jailed for nine months.

The Department of Justice said that it is against decriminalising sex workers who live together. It said that there are “concerns that this could create a loophole that could be open to abuse by criminal gangs and others who wish to profit from prostitution.”

I find the above case puzzling because it's unusual for custodial sentences to be imposed in non-violent cases in district courts - and there was no indication of whether or not it was the women's first offence.

From what I know about it, gardaí had placed the women's residence under surveillance after complaints had been made. Why would local people care about what other people get up to 'between the sheets'? I thought that Ireland had become a more socially liberal country.

I know that gardaí have to uphold the law as it's passed by the Oireachtas but I can't comprehend the priority that they gave to this case. Didn't they have more serious offences to deal with?

Peregrinus

political analyst wrote: »

An article from last year:

https://www.joe.ie/politics/difficult-cases-sex-workers-jailed-living-together-must-reviewed-government-warned-677741

I find the above case puzzling because it's unusual for custodial sentences to be imposed in non-violent cases in district courts - and there was no indication of whether or not it was the women's first offence.

From what I know about it, gardaí had placed the women's residence under surveillance after complaints had been made. Why would local people care about what other people get up to 'between the sheets'? I thought that Ireland had become a more socially liberal country.

I know that gardaí have to uphold the law as it's passed by the Oireachtas but I can't comprehend the priority that they gave to this case. Didn't they have more serious offences to deal with?

The charge was brothel-keeping. Living in a premises and engaging in acts of prostitution there is not an offence in Ireland (and never has been). Living in a premises in which someone else habitually engages in acts of prostitution is the offence of brothel-keeping. In this case each of the sex workers was guilty because of the acts of the other sex worker in the premises which they both occupied.

I don't know, but my guess is that the brothel-keeping offence was retained because, even if prostitution is not a crime, brothels are problematic because of the opportunities they present for other crimes (e.g. exploitation) and because of the nuisance they present, the custom they attract, the effect on neighbours, etc.

We're not told why the neighbours complained. Perhaps the brothel was attracting custom on a scale that caused a problem, or that caused them to feel unsafe in the street? And, to be fair to them, while the evidence in court was that neither of the sex workers involved was coerced, the neighbours are unlikely to have known that they weren't, and may have feared that they might have been.

I agree that the sentence seems heavy. This isn't a court report, though, and we're not told of the factors normally relevant to sentencing - e.g. as you point out, this may not have been a first offence.