Note 221 — Chapter IV · PROSTITUTION AND THE LAW

This subject will be much more fully discussed in the ensuing chapters. An additional word may be here added for the sake of clearness. The police can at any moment arrest a prostitute as a criminal; but, as a matter of fact, they do not do so unless she is guilty of something besides prostitution. If, for example, a woman restricts her operations inconspicuously to her own room, she is no less a prostitute amenable to the letter of the law; but the authorities would not interfere. If, on the other hand, she made a nuisance of herself; arrest would follow. Robbery is in Germany a crime and is treated as such no matter how it takes place; prostitution is a crime if additional circumstances make it worth while to treat it as such. That is to say, in itself it is practically not a crime, but a vice.