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11 American J. Crim. Just. 1 (1986-1987)

handle is hein.journals/acnjrlocm11 and id is 1 raw text is: AJCJ Vol. XI, No.1 (1986) EFFECTS OF PROSTITUTION: AN URBAN POPULATION RESPONDS By Ronald E. Vogel, Ed.D.* and Reed Adams, Ph.D.* This article examines community perceptions about the legalization of prostitution in a large southern community. The authors utilized a random digit dialing technique to develop a representative sample consisting of 850 respondents. In addition, the authors interviewed prostitutes to determine their perceptions about how they helped individuals and society. Themes were developed from the personal accounts of the prostitutes and presented to the public to assess their feelings regarding whether or not prostitution is beneficial in certain instances. One of the major findings of the study was that 32% of the community members interviewed believed that prostitution should be legalized. This finding led the authors to discuss policy implications in the last section of the article. The research reported in this article was carried out in a large southern city. The purpose was to determine whether or not the community felt that prostitution should be legalized and what benefits, if any, are derived from prostitution. Since the geographic area under study is considered to be in the bible belt, the authors assumed that the attitudes and beliefs about this subject of study would be firmly established. To aid the researchers in developing a questionnaire, which was partially designed to examine community perceptions about possible benefits derived from prostitution, the authors interviewed several call girls. Since the authors were engaged in a two year field *Department of Criminal Justice, University of North Carolina at Charlotte 1