Ronald Weitzer (born 1952) is a sociologist specializing in criminology and a professor at George Washington University, known for his publications on police-minority relations and on the sex industry.
Weitzer has authored a number of papers on the sex industry, with a focus on American policies toward prostitution laws and sex trafficking. He recently completed a study on the prostitution policy from Western Australia, which attempted to legalize brothel and escort prostitution in 2008. Seeprostitution in Western Australia.
Regarding American domestic prostitution policy, he advocates what he calls a "two-track" policy toward enforcement of prostitution laws. One "track" involves intensified law enforcement toward street prostitution (targeting both street prostitutes and their customers), arguing that street prostitution victimizes host communities and leaves the prostitutes themselves open to victimization. The second "track" involves what he calls "de facto decriminalization" of indoor prostitution, that is, the non-enforcement by police departments of laws against various forms of indoor prostitution, such as escorting, massage parlors, and brothels, even while such laws stay on the books. Weitzer holds that that these kinds of activities typically have little effect on the surrounding community and that enforcing laws against such practices involves involve time-consuming sting operations that waste police resources. Weitzer argues that this "two track" approach reflects public preferences regarding the proper focus of law enforcement, is a more efficient use of law enforcement resources, and is guided by the principle of harm reduction. He has stated that his "two track" policy recommendation cannot be neatly reduced to advocacy of "decriminalization" or "legalization".
Weitzer has been highly critical of the abolitionist position on prostitution and the conflation of all sex work with sex trafficking. While agreeing that sex trafficking is a real phenomenon, he argues that the scale of it has been greatly exaggerated by abolitionist organizations, such as the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. He also argues against claims that prostitution universally involves coercion and violence and that legalization would make such problems worse, claiming that research has shown that carefully regulated legal prostitution, in parts of the world where it exists, greatly increases the safety and job satisfaction of sex workers. He also argues against what he views as the demonization of customers in anti-prostitution arguments. He has stated that the exaggeration of the scale of violence and trafficking in the sex industry, the demonization of customers, and the call for a punitive response to such problems by prostitution abolitionists amounts to a moral panic.
He further argues that prostitution abolitionists are largely motivated by ideology, generally radical feminism or Christian right views, and this ideologically-driven view taints research and statistics about prostitution and trafficking offered by researchers and groups that advocate this position. He has been particularly critical of the claims of anti-prostitution writers such as Janice Raymond, Donna M. Hughes, and Melissa Farley for such reasons. Weitzer also holds that the Bush administration and its congressional allies have strongly embraced prostitution abolitionist views as a justification for a crackdown on the sex industry.
Weitzer's views have been in turn criticized by prostitution abolitionist Melissa Farley. She argues that all science is infused with values and that the assumptions of both abolitionist and pro-legalization researchers guide the hypotheses that drive such research. Farley has criticized Weitzer's perspective, claiming that his views place the perspectives of the surrounding community and of customers ahead of that of women in prostitution. Farley also claims that research has shown that indoor prostitutes are as vulnerable to violence as outdoor prostitutes, but that such violence is simply less visible to the larger community. Weitzer responds that it is possible to carry out objective research on the sex industry and that abolitionists have simply failed to do so. He also denies viewing prostitution solely from the point of view of the nonprostitute community, and that the views of both prostitutes and nonprostitutes are far from monolithic, in any event.
Police-minority relations
Weitzer has done research on police-minority relations in Israel, Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the United States, including studies of racial profiling and police misconduct and racially-biased policing. His research has used multiple research methods. He conducted in-depth interviews and observations of police-citizen interactions in a major study of policing in three neighborhoods in Washington, DC. Each neighborhood was either racially or economically distinct -- a black middle-class community, white middle-class community, and an impoverished black community. Major differences were found between the three neighborhoods in their perceptions of the DC police and the kinds of interactions and experiences neighborhood residents had with police officers. Prior to this study, Weitzer conducted major research on police-community relations in Northern Ireland, comparing four types of Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. The study resulted in his 1995 book, Policing Under Fire. Recently, Weitzer has analyzed survey data (with Badi Hasisi) on Arabs and Jews opinions of the Israel Police. Weitzer and Tuch published a book on Americans' views and personal experiences with the police, entitled Race and Policing in America: Conflict and Reform. In addition, Weitzer has examined the effects of major, well-publicized incidents of police misconduct (such as brutality and corruption) on public opinion toward to the police in New York and Los Angeles. This study found that public confidence in the police eroded dramatically after each incident, incidents that were given intensive media coverage. Although satisfaction with the police gradually rebounded years after the incident, this process took longer for African-Americans and Hispanics than for white residents of the two cities.
Weitzer's earliest study focused on Zimbabwe, where he conducted field research in the early 1980s. At that time, he documented the trend toward a de facto one-party state headed by President Robert Mugabe, whose ruling party relied on repressive security measures and institutions to cripple the political opposition. Mugabe's ruling party (ZANU-PF) used laws inherited from its predecessor -- the white-minority regime, which collapsed in 1980 and gave way to majority rule. The pattern of de facto one-party rule and repression of political opposition continued for 30 years, up to the present time. Weitzer's research was published in an 1984 article in the Journal of Modern African Studies and in his book, Transforming Settler States (University of California Press, 1990).
(with Steven Tuch), Race and Policing in America: Conflict and Reform, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0521851521 (hc), ISBN 0521616913 (pb).
(editor), Current Controversies in Criminology, New York: Prentice Hall, 2003. ISBN 0130941158.
(editor), Deviance and Social Control: A Reader, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. ISBN 007245900X.
(editor), Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry, New York: Routledge, 2000. ISBN 0-415-92294-1 (hc), ISBN 0-415-92295-X (pb). Published in Japan by Studio Pan, 2004.
(editor), Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry, 2nd Edition, New York and London: Routledge, 2009.
Policing Under Fire: Ethnic Conflict and Police-Community Relations in Northern Ireland, State University of New York Press, 1995. ISBN 079142247X.
Transforming Settler States: Communal Conflict and Internal Security in Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe, University of California Press, 1990. ISBN 0520064909.
Journal and anthology articles
"The Social Construction of Sex Trafficking: Ideology and Institutionalization of a Moral Crusade", Politics & Society 35(3):447—475, September 2007. .
(with Steven Tuch), "Reforming the Police: Racial Differences in Public Support for Change", Criminology 42(2): 391—416, May 2004. .
(with Charis E. Kubrin), "New Directions in Social Disorganization Theory", Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 40(4):374—402, December 2003. .
(with Charis E. Kubrin), "Retaliatory Homicide: Concentrated Disadvantage and Neighborhood Culture", Social Problems 50(2):157—180, May 2003. .
(with Steven Tuch), "Perceptions of Racial Profiling: Race, Class, and Personal Experience", Criminology 40(2):435—456, May 2002. .
"Racialized policing: Residents' perceptions in three neighborhoods", Law & Society Review 34(1):129—155, 2000. .
"Why We Need More Research on Sex Work", in Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry, edited by Ronald Weitzer, New York: Routledge, 2000. ISBN 0-415-92294-1 (hc), ISBN 0-415-92295-X (pb).
"The Politics of Prostitution in America", in Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry.
"Prostitution Control in America: Rethinking Public Policy", Crime, Law, and Social Change 32(1):83—102, 1999. .
"Prostitutes Rights In The United States: The Failure Of A Movement", Sociological Quarterly 32(1):23—41, Spring 1991. .
By Weitzer
(with SA Tuch) "Race and perceptions of police misconduct", Social Problems 51: 305—325, August 2004.
"Breaking news: How local TV news and real-world conditions affect fear of crime", Justice Quarterly 21(3): 497—520, September 2004.
"Public opinion on reforms in policing", The Police Chief 71(12), December 2004.
"New directions in research on prostitution", Crime, Law, and Social Change, 43(4/5): 211—235, June 2005.
(with James Austin and Kelly Dedel Johnson) "Alternatives to secure detention and confinement of juvenile offenders", OJJDP Juvenile Justice Practices Series, Juvenile Justice Bulletin, September 2005.
"Prostitution as a form of work", Sociology Compass 1(1):143—155, 2007.
(with SA Tuch and WG Skogan) "Police-Community Relations in a Majority-Black City", Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 45:398—428, November 2008.
"Legalizing Prostitution: Morality Politics in Western Australia", British Journal of Criminology 49:88—105, January 2009. ( PDF.)
