Regulating the Sexual City: Compulsory Rehabilitation Orders & Kerb Crawler Rehabilitation Programmes Dr Teela Sanders Anti Social Behaviour, Urban Spaces and the Night time Economy University of Leeds 17 th April th April 2008

Drawing on sociological studies

Overview of Paper ► 2004 – now: Recent policy context ► Discourses and narratives about sex workers in need of ‘rehabilitation’ ► Compulsory Rehabilitation Orders ► Practical implications of ‘exiting’ ► New focus on the ‘kerbcrawler’ as the problem ► Policing sexuality in the city ► ‘Regulatory therapy’: Support through surveillance, exclusion and control

Recent Policy Developments ► Being Outside: constructing a response to street prostitution (Scottish Executive,2004) ► Prostitution (Public Places) (Scotland)Act 2007 ► Paying the Price (Home Office, 2004) ► Co-ordinated Prostitution Strategy (Home Office, 2006) ► New ‘Tackling Demand’ Review (July 2008) ► Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill (2008):  Section 71: Removal of “common prostitute”  Section 72: Orders to promote rehabilitation  Compulsory Rehabilitation Orders

Sex Workers as Victim Narratives ► Prostitution defined as only sexual exploitation and as public nuisance ► Focus on the street ► Exiting as the only policy option: not making it safer for women ► Remove opportunity for prostitution to take place ► Priority is eradication ► Recognises not homogenous group but then goes on to say common characteristics are…. ► Abuse ► Difficult lives ► Homelessness ► Problematic drug abuse ► No agency

Coordinated Prostitution Strategy 2006 ► Rejected managed zones – condoning ► Rejected licensed brothel system ► Eradication of street prostitution through… ► ‘Exiting’ and/or criminalisation of sex workers - ASBOs ► ‘Tackling Demand’ ► Trafficking and sexual exploitation ► Move from victim to offender ► Move from fines to ASBOs / imprisonment ► Increase in sex workers sent to prison

Compulsory Rehabilitation Orders 2008 ► The court may make an order for a person convicted of loitering or soliciting (for purpose of prostitution) requiring them to attend three meetings with a specified “supervisor” ► The purpose of the order is to promote the “offender’s” rehabilitation ► Failure to attend any sessions can result in a further summons and a possible 72 hours’ imprisonment

Practical Policy Implications ► CROs ignore the essential need for voluntary engagement in change not forced change ► ASBOs and criminal justice route can displace activity, cause women to work less safely and increase risk of violence ► Sends women to prison & criminal record, denying access to more services ► Drives women away from services rather than making them more accessible ► Moving towards zero tolerance with no legal indoor provision ► Potentially opens the way for moral judgements, vigilantism and increased exploitation in underworld

Ideological Impact ► Sex workers as criminals not as rightful citizens ► Ipswich murders had no impact on policy in terms of safety or providing spaces for women who work on the streets ► Discourse of Disposability (Lowman, 2001) ► Violence on the street ► Stigmatisation of the most marginal women ► No recognition of voluntary sex work or long and complex processes of leaving

‘Tipplezones’ in Holland

Redefining who is the ‘problem’ ► 1980’s + men who buy sex problematised ► Increase in laws against ‘the kerbcrawler’ ► 1985 Sexual Offences Act - shift in who was the problem ► 2001 Criminal Justice & Police Act - kerbcrawling an arrestable offence ► 2003 Criminal Justice Act - conditional cautioning ► Peak between : 993 men arrested (2002)

The Punter, The Kerb Crawler, The ‘User’, The Offender ► ‘Problem of sex’ = ‘Problem of men’ – men defined as ‘abusers’, users’, ‘danger’, spreaders of disease’ ► Complex socio- economic reasons for sex industry not addressed ► Individual groups of men and women involved in sex industry blamed for deterioration of ‘moral fabric’. ► Men who visit brothels / escorts – exempt ► Lap dancing not considered sexual consumption

Coordinated Prostitution Strategy: Tackling Demand ► Enforcement of existing laws for kerbcrawling ► Addressing concerns from communities ► Informal warning / court diversion / prosecution ► Crackdowns, zero tolerance decoys, supporting naming and shaming, media coverage, driving licenses revoked, fines, rehabilitation programmes ► High profile naming and shaming – Aberdeen / Leeds: impact on families?? ► 2008 – another review of ‘tackling demand’ with view to criminalising men who buy

Deterrence Campaigns ► Imagery and discourses in national and local official campaigns is one of vile hatred for men who buy sexual services ► Radio adverts, beer mats and posters in newspaper – warnings of how middle class respectability can be ruined by a small misdemeanour……..

‘Kerb Crawler Rehabilitation Programmes’ ► Arrest = Choice of ‘rehab’ or court ► Supported by government based on low re- offending rates ► Strategy ignored evaluations: re-arrest not a good measurement due to displacement ► No evidence that programmes in North America have lasted more than 2 years ► Range of reasons for ineffectiveness: displacement; addictions; negative view of commercial sex; not balanced; moral message about buying sex as wrong

‘Regulatory Therapy’ & New Labour ► Harrison and Sanders, 2006 : Understand social regulation that is grounded in structure and agency ► Labelling behaviours ‘anti social’ and ‘vulnerable’ justifies further exclusion, incarceration, inequalities ► Welfare support alongside disciplinary mechanisms ► Responsibilization (Scoular & O’Neill, 2007) and ‘the conditionality of welfare’ (Dwyer, 1998) – support with deterrence, containment and discipline ► Gendered surveillance and control – CROs coercion to ‘change’ and ‘exit’ a lifestyle to become ‘better’ ► Constraining and conditioning of female sexuality – net widening since 1997

‘Men’ as the problem ► Aim to re-educate men….. ► Certain forms of male sexuality problematised ► Certain types of sexual consumption as anti social – other forms of commercial sex (lap dancing) facilitated in the city ► ‘Respectability’ and correct sexual behaviour at the centre of policy ► Scourfield & Drakeford (2002) – CJS to police and control behaviours of men ► Difference symbolises deviance, which equates to criminality and a threat of social and community cohesion

Solutions ► Wider discussions on the place of sexual consumption in late capitalism ► Disentangle trafficking issues from the general sex industry ► Understanding of the supply and demand dynamics of the market – women entering into the sex industry ► Move away from ideas of ‘eradication’ – WHO BELIEVES THIS IS POSSIBLE ? ► More pragmatic solutions that prioritise safety – zones / licensing ► Court diversion schemes – stop revolving door of fine and arrest ► Not use CJS to deal with social issues ► Recognition of voluntary sex work and adult consent in commercial sex

References ► Scoular, J and O’Neill, M (2007) ‘Regulating prostitution: social inclusion, responsibilization and the politics of prostitution reform’. British Journal of Criminology, 47 (5) ► Harrison, M and Sanders, T (2006) Vulnerable People and the Development of 'Regulatory Therapy'. Supporting Safe Communities: Housing, Crime and Communities. T. Newburn, A. Dearling and P. Somerville (eds) London, Chartered Institute of Housing: ► Dwyer, P. (1998) ‘Conditional citizens ? Welfare rights and responsibilities in the late 1990s’, Critical Social Policy, 18, 4: 57, pp