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ABSTRACT
This article argues that there are two main barriers preventing imagining and actioning an inclusive, holistic strategy for prostitution reform in the UK. It identifies five key tenets needed to improve the situations for men and women involved in selling sex. Findings from innovative research methods are used to explore how community safety may be improved.
KEY WORDS
prostitution, community safety, research methodologies, participatory action research, residents
A CO-ORDINATED PROSTITUTION STRATEGY?
In response to a review of prostitution legislation (the first for 50 years) the Home Office published A coordinated prostitution strategy and a summary of responses to Paying the price in January 2006, setting out the government's proposals for a strategy focusing predominantly on: prevention of involvement; fostering routes out; and protecting communities from street based sex markets. Prostitution is defined as 'commercial sexual exploitation' and the strategy seeks to address this issue by: tackling demand via 'disrupting the market'and 'deterring punters'; ensuring justice, by strengthening and enforcing the law against those who exploit and abuse women, young people and children; and tolerating off-street prostitution where two to three women are working together in the interests of their safety. To ensure the strategy is actioned there is a focus on partnerships, the co-ordination of welfarist policing and the enforcement of the law to divert, deter and rehabilitate those women who do not choose to exit as the most 'responsible' option (see Phoenix & Oerton, 2005; Scoular & O'Neill, 2006 for a full discussion of 'responsibilisation' to exit).
In the previous consultation document, Paying the price, the (then) home secretary, David Blunkett, located the issues of prostitution in the context of wider policymaking and the promotion of civic renewal and community safety (Home Office, 2004: 4). This paper explores the strategy and discusses the implications for 'community safety' within the broader context of New Labour governance and the potential seeds of transformative possibilities and radical democratic praxis contained within New Labour's approach.
There are a number of potentially positive outcomes in the strategy documented under 'action for government' and 'action for partnerships', including the focus on strengthening approaches to child exploitation by ensuring a holistic approach that includes work with schools; including 'communities' through consultation processes like community conferencing; expanding court diversion and...