The Fine Art of Regulated Tolerance: Prostitution in Amsterdam
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
| Author | Chrisje Brants |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00106 |
I explore the idiosyncrasies of Dutch policy with regard to prostitution,
placing them in the broader framework of criminal justice and policy
debates in general. More especially, I shall be looking at recent develop-
ments towards, on the one hand, legalization of prostitution, and on the
other a crackdown by the (criminal justice) authorities on the organized
criminal networks that would appear to have gained the upper hand in
Amsterdam’s red-light district.
INTRODUCTION
Because whores are necessary in big cities and especially in cities of commerce such as
ours – indeed it is far better to have these women than not to have them – and also
because the holy church tolerates whores on good grounds, for these reasons the court
and sheriff of Amsterdam shall not entirely forbid the keeping of brothels.
Thus decreed one of the first bye-laws of the City of Amsterdam in the year
1413: a supreme example avant la lettre of what other countries sometimes
see as the fine art of Dutch pragmatic tolerance. Even in mediaeval
Amsterdam, prostitution may not have been morally acceptable, but it was
not to be regarded as an absolute evil. Rather, it was seen as a social necessity
and part of city life, albeit that it could also create a public nuisance and
the court and sheriff had a certain discretion in dealing with it. As a result,
licensed brothels first appeared in Amsterdam almost 600 years ago. Ever
since, the city has worried about its image abroad, about the crime and other
vices (gambling, drunkenness, violence, police corruption) that went hand
in hand with prostitution, about its social nuisance value and about how to
protect vulnerable people from it (including the tourists it attracted and
whose money was most welcome). Nevertheless the essence of the system of
regulation through tolerance and discretion remained unchanged through
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
* Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, Willem Pompe Institute,
University of Utrecht, 3512 BM Utrecht, The Netherlands
621
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 1998
ISSN: 0263–323X, pp. 621–35
The Fine Art of Regulated Tolerance:
Prostitution in Amsterdam
CHRISJE BRANTS*
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