Taking The Crime Out Of Sex Work

New Zealand was the first country in the world to decriminalise all sectors of sex work. This book provides an in-depth look at New Zealand's experience of decriminalisation. It provides first-hand views and experiences of this policy from the point of view of those involved in the sex industry, as well as people involved in developing, implementing, researching and reviewing the policies. Presenting an example of radical legal reform in an area of current policy debate it will be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduates as well as policy makers and activists.

"Despite being dubbed "the world's oldest profession," prostitution has rarely been viewed as a legitimate form of labour. Instead, it has been criminalized, sensationalized, and polemicized across the socio-political spectrum by everyone from politicians to journalists to women's groups. Interest in and concern over sex work is not grounded in the lived realities of those who work in the industry, but rather in inflammatory ideas about who is participating, how they wound up in this line of work, and what form it takes. In Selling Sex, Emily van der Meulen, Elya M. Durisin, and Victoria Love present a more nuanced, balanced, and realistic view of the sex industry. They bring together a vast collection of voices - including researchers, feminists, academics, and advocates, as well as sex workers of differing ages, genders, and sectors - to engage in a dialogue that challenges the dominant narratives surrounding the sex industry and advances the idea that sex work is in fact work. Presenting a variety of opinions and perspectives on such diverse topics as the social stigma of sex work, police violence, labour organizing, anti-prostitution feminism, human trafficking, and harm reduction, Selling Sex is an eye-opening, challenging, and necessary book."--Publisher's website.

Using the evidence from New Zealand, this unique collection examines how decriminalisation is experienced by different groups of sex workers and reveals the enduring challenges for sex workers in this context. This is an invaluable contribution to the urgent debates regarding sex work laws and the global struggle to realise sex worker’s rights.

This book brings together literature, empirical research findings from two projects, and policy analysis to examine how some forces in England have adopted the approach of treating crimes against sex workers as hate crimes. This book identifies some of the benefits of the hate crime approach to crimes against sex workers, both operationally and for some of the victims of crime. The authors argue that the hate crime approach should not be seen as an alternative to decriminalisation of sex work but can provide a pathway to achieving more sensitive but robust policing of crimes against sex workers and support in accessing justice through the criminal justice system. They also examine the broader context of hate crime policy and scholarship as they debate the relevance, problems and merits of the sex work hate crime model. The book provides another dimension to current theoretical and policy debates about widening definitions and law around hate crime to include other groups beyond existing protected characteristics.

Throughout history prostitution has always been a source of fierce debate; societies have either grudgingly tolerated it or tried (always unsuccessfully) to ban it. With the emergence of much more overt acceptance of all forms of sexual activity it has become more apparent that sex workers who ply their trade on the streets of our cities are a particularly vulnerable group at risk of violent attacks and assaults. The realization on the implications for such violence on society overall, led to the emergence of this volume. With research gathered from academics and practitioners hailing from various countries and fields, this edited collection will be invaluable for those who want to better understand the experience of street sex workers, the strategies available for managing this trade and how to help reduce the violence against the men and women who conduct it.

This book brings together literature, empirical research findings from two projects, and policy analysis to examine how some forces in England have adopted the approach of treating crimes against sex workers as hate crimes. This book identifies some of the benefits of the hate crime approach to crimes against sex workers, both operationally and for some of the victims of crime. The authors argue that the hate crime approach should not be seen as an alternative to decriminalisation of sex work but can provide a pathway to achieving more sensitive but robust policing of crimes against sex workers and support in accessing justice through the criminal justice system. They also examine the broader context of hate crime policy and scholarship as they debate the relevance, problems and merits of the sex work hate crime model. The book provides another dimension to current theoretical and policy debates about widening definitions and law around hate crime to include other groups beyond existing protected characteristics.

While sex work has long been controversial, it has become even more contested over the past decade as laws, policies, and enforcement practices have become more repressive in many nations, partly as a result of the ascendancy of interest groups committed to the total abolition of the sex industry. At the same time, however, several other nations have recently decriminalized prostitution. Legalizing Prostitution maps out the current terrain. Using America as a backdrop, Weitzer draws on extensive field research in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany to illustrate alternatives to American-style criminalization of sex workers. These cases are then used to develop a roster of “best practices” that can serve as a model for other nations considering legalization. Legalizing Prostitution provides a theoretically grounded comparative analysis of political dynamics, policy outcomes, and red-light landscapes in nations where prostitution has been legalized and regulated by the government, presenting a rich and novel portrait of the multifaceted world of legal sex for sale.

Winner of the British Society of Criminology Annual Book Prize 2022. This valuable exploration of work duality calls for recognition of the experiences of sex workers, featuring the accounts of individuals who take extraordinary risks to hold jobs in both sex industries and non-sex work employment.