“In 2003, Rhode Island unintentionally decriminalized indoor prostitution.

The state’s legislature amended a law in 1980, believing that the law inadvertently outlawed some forms of consensual sex between adults. That amendment created a legal loophole — one that sat unnoticed until 2003, when a District Court judge interpreted it to mean that paying for consensual sex was not a criminal offense in Rhode Island, not if it took place privately indoors. It took the state until 2009 to close the loophole.

The state’s little legal accident was a bit embarrassing. But it did have a silver lining: it could serve as a “natural experiment,” allowing researchers to estimate causal effects of decriminalizing sex work. “* The Young Turks hosts Ben Mankiewicz and Ana Kasparian break it down.

*Read more here from Adrianna McIntyre / Vox:
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5898187/prostitution-rhode-island-decriminalized