| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Joel Best. Controlling Vice: Regulating Brothel Prostitution in St. Paul, 1865–1883. (The History of Crime and Criminal Justice Series.) Columbus: Ohio State University Press. 1998. Pp. xiv, 175. Cloth $29.94, paper $16.95.

This book offers more than its subtitle suggests. Joel Best, a historically minded sociologist, skillfully uses St. Paul's regulation of prostitution and the controversy surrounding it to build a model of how societies respond to ineradicable deviance. Regulatory schemes work better than prohibition, which invites corruption and organized crime. They are unstable and politically vulnerable, however, because they implicitly sanction immoral activities. Regulated vice is a moral eyesore. 1

At least it was in St. Paul, Minnesota, where politicians and police devised a practical system for dealing with prostitution. The system, which had variants in many nineteenth-century American cities and towns, formally criminalized prostitution. Once a month, madams appeared in court to pay modest fines for "keeping a disorderly house." What they were actually doing was renewing a contract to keep orderly disorderly houses. Madams who tolerated robberies and assaults in their brothels risked heavy fines and imprisonment. Those who cooperated and kept the lid on could count on a measure of stability, even jovial support: uniformed police frequently attended their open-house parties. Their customers, assured of greater physical (if not venereal) safety and guaranteed anonymity by police and a cooperative press, naturally supported this détente. . . .

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