by Alison Bass | Dec 11, 2016 | human trafficking, law enforcement, pimps, prostitution, sex trafficking, sex work, trafficking, Uncategorized, underage prostitution
The recent shooting at a popular pizza joint in Washington, D.C. has as much to do with the current hysteria over sex trafficking as it does with the untrammeled spread of fake news on social media. The 28-year-old man who fired an assault rifle inside the Comet Ping...
by Alison Bass | Nov 21, 2016 | human trafficking, law enforcement, pimps, prostitution, public health, sex trafficking, sex work, trafficking, Uncategorized, underage prostitution, websites
The arrest of the CEO of Backpage, a website for sex work ads, as he stepped off a plane in Houston October 6, made headlines. Carl Ferrer, 55, was arrested on a California warrant and charged with pimping by the California Attorney General’s office. Two other...
by Alison Bass | Oct 14, 2016 | Uncategorized
A lawsuit challenging California’s laws against prostitution just got a much-needed boost. The Southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, together with a raft of other organizations committed to gender equality, has filed an amicus brief...
by Alison Bass | Aug 12, 2016 | Uncategorized
It’s heartening to see that in its highly critical report on Baltimore’s police department, the U.S. Department of Justice excoriated the police for ignoring sexual assault complaints by minority women, including sex workers and transgender women.The DOJ...
by Alison Bass | Jun 15, 2016 | human trafficking, law enforcement, prostitution, sex trafficking, sex work, trafficking, Uncategorized, underage prostitution
Last Friday, the police chief of Oakland, California, resigned amid a growing scandal involving a number of his police officers who had sex with an underage sex worker while their supervisors looked the other way, according to reporting by the East Bay Express. The...
by Alison Bass | Jun 6, 2016 | pimps, prostitution, public health, sex trafficking, sex work, trafficking, Uncategorized, underage prostitution
Jimmy Carter is the latest persona to jump on the End Demand bandwagon. In an op-ed piece for The Washington Post, he called for making the purchase of sex illegal. Unfortunately, the former President’s argument is based on erroneous information and a naïve moralistic...
by Alison Bass | May 26, 2016 | Uncategorized
On Wednesday, Amnesty International published its policy on sex work, calling on governments around the world to decriminalize consensual prostitution and take other steps to protect the human rights of sex workers including ending discrimination against them. The...
by Alison Bass | May 9, 2016 | human trafficking, sex trafficking, sex work, trafficking, Uncategorized, underage prostitution
I have been invited to give a talk on sex work on May 16 at California State University in Los Angeles. My 4:30 pm talk, sponsored by CSU’s Cross-Cultural Centers, will focus on research I gathered for my book, Getting Screwed: Sex Workers and the Law, and why...
by Alison Bass | May 2, 2016 | Uncategorized
There seems to be an international push these days toward making the purchase of sex (but not its sale) illegal. In the 16 years since Sweden criminalized buyers of commercial sex, Norway, Denmark, Canada and most recently, northern Ireland have followed suit. And now...
by Alison Bass | Apr 13, 2016 | antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs, clinical trials, conflicts of interest, drug marketing, FDA, pharmaceutical industry, prostitution, sex work
After my first nonfiction book, Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial, was published, a number of readers told me that the book would make a great movie. (It’s written as a narrative and tells the true story of two...
