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About this product
Product Identifiers
PublisherOhio State University Press
ISBN-100814250076
ISBN-139780814250075
eBay Product ID (ePID)371257
Product Key Features
Number of Pages192 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameControlling Vice : Regulating Brothel Prostitution in St. Paul, 1865-1883
Publication Year2021
SubjectUnited States / State & Local / MidWest (IA, Il, in, Ks, Mi, MN, Mo, Nd, Ne, Oh, Sd, Wi), Criminology, Prostitution & Sex Trade
TypeTextbook
AuthorJoel Best
Subject AreaSocial Science, History
SeriesHistory Crime and Criminal Jus Ser.
FormatTrade Paperback
Dimensions
Item Height0.6 in
Item Weight10.3 Oz
Item Length9 in
Item Width6 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional
LCCN98-026486
Dewey Edition21
Dewey Decimal306.74/09776/581
SynopsisFor eighteen years following the Civil War, the police in St. Paul, Minnesota, informally regulated brothel prostitution. Each month, the madams who ran the brothels were charged with keeping houses of ill fame and fined in the city's municipal court. In effect, they were paying licensing fees in order to operate illegal enterprises. This arrangement was open; during this period, the city's newspapers published hundreds of articles about vice and its regulation. Joel Best claims that the sort of informal regulation in St. Paul was common in the late nineteenth century and was far more typical than the better known but brief experiment with legalization tried in St. Louis. With few exceptions, the usual approach to these issues of social control has been to treat informal regulation as a form of corruption, but Best's view is that St. Paul's arrangement exposes the assumption that the criminal justice system must seek to eradicate crime. He maintains that other policies are possible. In a book that integrates history and sociology, the author has reconstructed the municipal court records for most of 1865-83, using newspaper articles, an arrest ledger kept by the St. Paul police, and municipal court dockets. He has been able to trace which madams operated brothels and the identities of many of the prostitutes who lived and worked in them.