The Ipswich Murders

[poliphilo]

They've just arrested a man on suspicion of murdering the five women in Ipswich.

I sense a change in the public mood. Normally there's a kind of collective shrug at the murder of a prostitute. If it makes the news at all it's a case of  "well, what can you expect.?" This case started out that way, but as it's progressed and the number of victims has mounted there's been a rethink. The dead girls have aquired faces and characters, we've heard from parents and siblings and friends and now we're thinking of them as young women first and prostitutes second and the shrug has turned into an awareness that anyone could take that wrong turning and end up where they did. 

At the same time we seem to have opened a proper, national debate about prostitution. We've learned that the government was thinking of licensing properly regulated red-light areas but backed away for fear of the right-wing press. Typical New Labour, that!   But maybe now they'll carry through. We seem to have joined the dots and realised that by not wanting  to deal with the issue we have created conditions that make murder easy.

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

We have a serial killer targeting prostitutes in Atlantic City (not too far from Philadelphia, as you'll recall), and there's a similarly respectful slant in the press. I doubt we'll be legalising or licensing the areas any time soon, though.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I never made it to Atlantic City. The nearest I got was Cape May.

I'm hoping the response to this case will cause the government to do some serious thinking. And not just on prostitution but drugs as well. Every one of the victims was on the game because she had an addiction to feed.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

It appears our approach is going to be different -- there's talk of razing all the sleaze motels behind which the bodies have been found. That will remove some blight, of course, but I'm not sure it will do much for the problem. The AC folks, like your Ipswich folks, had addictions as well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a policy for driving sex workers even deeper into the shadows.