Women and men receive different punishments for their involvement in the same crime: prostitution

In a new study of nearly 23,000 people who had been arrested only once, and for prostitution, Rebecca Pfeffer finds significant disparities in how men and women had been treated. Men, who tend to be the buyers, were less likely to be arrested compared to women, and were also less likely to be given a jail sentence. The way in which prostitution laws are enforced, she writes, disproportionately harms women and raises questions about the concept of all being equal before the law.