The Prostitution Prevention Law of 1956 made prostitution a punishable criminal offense in Japan. In the 1960s, some criminologists in the United States advocated the decriminalization of victimless crimes, one of which was prostitution. New ideas regarding the control, or lack thereof, of prostitution were then introduced into Japan, a country where decriminalization was not realized in the dimension of criminal law. Japan rapidly became a society of consumers, in which the demand for prostitution increased, and more prostitutes were compensated financially for their services in disguised brothels or various other call-girl arrangements. However, the total number of offenses exposed by the police under the Prostitution Prevention Law has decreased drastically during the past 30 years. In essence, decriminalization of prostitution has been accomplished by the practices of law enforcement agencies. Table, notes, references