Being Outside - Constructing a Response to Street Prostitution

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Being Outside: CONSTRUCTING A RESPONSE TO STREET PROSTITUTION

executive summary

Concern is rising regarding the incidence of prostitution in Scotland, the damage which results to those involved, the harm which can result to the communities affected and the possible association with a range of serious criminal activities, such as drug misuse and people trafficking.

The Scottish Parliament has considered this concern in the context of possible introduction of legally sanctioned 'management zones' - but the Expert Group was set up to examine and advise on all issues relevant to prostitution, rather than just this single aspect. The Group's task - spread over a three year period - has been broken into three elements: women involved in street prostitution (to whom this report relates) to be followed by women involved in 'indoor' prostitution, and then men involved in prostitution.

The Group gathered information and research findings relating to the UK, Europe and other countries comparable to Scotland; examined the current position in the four largest Scottish cities, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow; spoke directly to service providers operationally involved in work relevant to this field, and heard from women themselves involved, through meetings and through research commissioned for the purpose. The Group also shared information and ideas with the Home Office review which has been carrying out a similar examination in England and Wales.

Street prostitution is overwhelmingly an urban phenomenon, concentrated in the four large Scottish cities. The numbers of women involved are difficult to quantify, but informed estimates have been made for each of the four cities, which shows a total, Scotland-wide, of about 1,400 women involved, of whom about 180 are likely to be on the streets of the four cities each night. Each city has its own characteristics and problems with regard to the occurrence of street prostitution, and each has adopted different approaches to tackling the phenomenon.

Key common factors in street prostitution across Scotland were identified.

  • Street prostitution is overwhelmingly a survival behaviour for the women involved, who have an accumulation of serious personal difficulties and few resources with which to develop a less damaging way of life.
  • Poverty, drug misuse, and to a lesser extent alcohol misuse, are intrinsically linked to most street prostitution in Scotland.
  • Redevelopment is affecting the context of street prostitution - and complicating the capacity to respond effectively.
  • Service responses which are deployed need to be specific to the task of tackling street prostitution if they are to work.

There are a number of key common challenges:

  • to safeguard women involved in prostitution, reduce the harm they experience, tackle the concurrent behaviours such as drug misuse and help them towards exiting prostitution;
  • to protect residential and commercial communities from the effects of soliciting and prostitution;
  • to prevent children and young people who may be vulnerable to becoming involved in prostitution from taking that step;
  • to influence the attitudes which lead to the abuse of women sexually and physically through street prostitution.

Meeting these challenges was identified by the Group as the main objective which policy and service activity in this field should pursue.

Any response will be multi-faceted because this set of objectives, of necessity, faces in several different directions simultaneously:

  • addressing the needs of women involved or at risk of becoming involved,
  • addressing the needs of the different communities affected, and
  • tackling the attitudes which fuel the persistence of prostitution.

The way forward proposed by the Group is as follows:

1. A national strategic framework is necessary, requiring local identification of whether a need exists, action where evidence of street prostitution is identified, and setting out the core content of any local approach and the standards of service and principles of good practice which should be applicable.

2. Where evidence of need is identified a local implementation plan should be drawn up, involving the full range of local service interests. The plan should include a strategy for preventing the involvement of vulnerable people in street prostitution; early intervention measures with those beginning to become actively involved; services for reducing harm with those more deeply involved; arrangements for managing risk and nuisance; and services supporting women to exit street prostitution, prevent relapse and sustain non-involvement in prostitution.

3. Tackling street prostitution should be seen as a corporate and multi-agency responsibility. The local implementation plan must centre on women involved in street prostitution, but should also look beyond the individual needs of those women involved, or at risk, and should seek to ensure that the impact from redevelopment of areas traditionally used for street prostitution be managed, to reduce adverse effects arising from dispersal and loss of service access.

4. Implementation of the plan should be monitored at regular intervals against agreed targets and prescribed standards of performance.

5. Arising from the national strategic framework there should be a range of national and local initiatives, to influence and educate public opinion regarding the risks of prostitution-based sexual relationships and the abusive elements they contain.

6. The law remains the key means to ensure continued protection from exploitation through prostitution to vulnerable groups, including young people and vulnerable adult women. Effective enforcement of these aspects of the law should be a priority in the local plan.

7. The law should be reviewed with regard to soliciting. The changes would seek to ensure that the law should:

  • not criminalise on a moral basis;
  • address the imbalance between men and women arising from the present emphasis on the person soliciting, without reference to the potential purchaser of sexual services;
  • seek to reduce stigma which attaches disproportionately to the person soliciting as against the potential purchaser;
  • minimise the use of imprisonment for women involved in prostitution;
  • ensure continued protection to vulnerable groups, including young people and vulnerable adult men and women, from exploitation;
  • provide effective protection to the general public from offensive behaviour or conduct;
  • avoid any tendency to increase risk to vulnerable people and to communities through unplanned displacement; and
  • provide a constructive legal framework to support the achievement of broader strategic obligations for tackling prostitution in Scotland.

A change is proposed, therefore, to replace criminalisation of soliciting per se, and replace this with a legal focus on offensive behaviour or conduct arising from a prostitution related sexual transaction - whether caused by purchaser or seller.

8. This approach would remove a need for specific legislative action regarding 'kerb crawling' - which could be policed on a basis of public offence under the new legal approach proposed. It would also amend the case for 'management zones' as a possible useful local strategy for focusing service delivery and managing nuisance arising from street prostitution. This would change from a case based on discretionary suspension of the criminal law to one which is within the law and can be considered and used in the right circumstances as part of the agreed local strategy.

How would these measures meet the objectives defined by the Group above?

Objective 1: to safeguard women involved in prostitution, reduce the harm they experience, tackle the concurrent behaviours such as drug misuse and help them towards exiting prostitution.

This objective is addressed by the following proposals:

  • Introducing a national strategic approach, which requires constructive action to address street prostitution, informed by known best practice and meeting performance standards;
  • Planning and implementing co-ordinated multi-agency action, where need is identified;
  • Ensuring that local action is comprehensive - covering prevention, early intervention, harm reduction and exiting;
  • Establishing corporate ownership at local level of the responsibility to promote personal and community safety in regard to street prostitution;
  • Creating a legal context which facilitates constructive engagement with women involved in street prostitution, whilst continuing to provide personal and community protection against exploitation and offensive behaviour and conduct;
  • Ensuring that the local plan response is continuous, monitored and effective.

Objective 2: to protect residential and commercial communities from the effects of soliciting and prostitution.

This objective is addressed by the following proposals:

  • Ensuring that the law in relation to street prostitution focuses on offensive behaviour or conduct which might arise;
  • Locating the community interest within the 'managed process' approach contained in the local plan, to ensure that it is properly recognised and reflected in the comprehensive approach. Management of risk and public offence arising from street prostitution will be one of the implementation plan requirements;
  • Working to reduce levels of incidence of street prostitution and thereby reducing its impact.

Objective 3: to prevent children and young women who may be vulnerable to becoming involved in prostitution from taking that step.

This objective is addressed by the following proposals:

  • Confirming the suitability of existing legal provision for the protection of children and vulnerable adults, but placing the use of the law in a context of structured prevention and early intervention measures to seek to ensure that the law is used pro-actively and effectively;
  • Providing a requirement for effective prevention and early intervention services where the need is identified;
  • Using the national strategic framework to identify and promote best practice in the prevention field.

Objective 4: to influence the attitudes which lead to the abuse of women sexually and physically through street prostitution.

This objective is addressed by the following proposal:

  • Requiring the national strategic framework and the local implementation plan to progress measures for public information and education.
Structure of the Report

Section 1

This section describes the Group's remit and the background to its establishment.

Section 2

This section describes the steps the Group has taken to inform itself of the current situation in the four Scottish cities most affected by street prostitution - Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow - with regard to both prevalence and local responses. It has also familiarised itself with information, research and thinking from other parts of the UK, from Europe and from other parts of the world which are culturally comparable. A strong emphasis has been placed on hearing the experiences and views of women directly involved as well as those providing services to them.

Section 3

Section three defines terms used in the report.

Section 4

Section four demonstrates that street prostitution is overwhelmingly an urban phenomenon, concentrated in the four largest Scottish cities. The numbers of women involved are difficult to quantify, but informed estimates have been made for each of the four cities, which shows a total, Scotland-wide, of about 1,400 women involved, of whom about 180 in total are likely to be on the streets of the four cities each night. Each city has its own characteristics and problems with regard to the occurrence of street prostitution, and each has adopted different approaches to tackling the phenomenon. These are described and discussed in the report.

  • Aberdeen has adopted a 'managed zone' based approach, which seeks to contain the incidence of street prostitution to a designated area and develop services which can deliver harm reduction and exiting assistance to the locality.
  • Dundee has a low apparent incidence - and numbers do not justify a specific targeted response, although the low numbers are difficult to explain in a city where prevalence of drug misuse parallels the overall Scottish urban pattern.
  • In Edinburgh there has been a history of trying to geographically contain the incidence with associated provision of relevant health and social care services. Redevelopment and residential pressures have undermined this approach resulting in a situation which is now fragmented and volatile, with limited service access for women involved, and increasing use of ASBOs in response to community safety considerations.
  • Glasgow has a high incidence, which it is responding to through an explicit policy approach, development and co-ordination of a range of dedicated services and the harnessing of all relevant services in the city to the common objective of reducing harm and assisting exiting. Glasgow too, however is experiencing pressures arising from redevelopment and increasing evidence of soliciting in parts of the city previously unaffected.

Section 5

Whilst the experience of the four cities varies in terms of scale and the nature of local approach being adopted, it is very evident, as shown in Section 5, that there are key factors common to each city situation:

  • Street prostitution is overwhelmingly a survival behaviour for the women involved, who have an accumulation of personal difficulties and few resources with which to develop a less damaging way of life;
  • Poverty, drug misuse, and to a lesser extent alcohol misuse are intrinsically linked to most street prostitution in Scotland;
  • Redevelopment is affecting the context of street prostitution - and complicating the capacity to respond effectively;
  • Service responses which are deployed need to be gender specific and focused on the task of tackling street prostitution if they are to work.

Section 6

The Group identifies in Section 6 a need for a comprehensive, co-ordinated approach to address complex objectives:

  • to safeguard women involved in street based prostitution, reduce the harm they experience, tackle the concurrent behaviours such as drug misuse and help them towards exiting prostitution;
  • to protect residential and commercial communities from the effects of prostitution;
  • to prevent children and young women who may be vulnerable to becoming involved in prostitution from taking that step; and
  • to influence the attitudes which lead to the high levels of sexual and physical abuse through street prostitution.

Any response must be multi-faceted because this set of objectives, of necessity, faces in several different directions simultaneously:

  • addressing the needs of women involved or at risk of becoming involved,
  • addressing the needs of the different communities affected; and
  • tackling the attitudes which fuel the persistence of prostitution.

An approach is outlined based on a national strategy which requires identification of whether there is evidence of street prostitution in the local authority area, followed by local planned action when a need is identified. The national strategy also sets standards of practice to be pursued. The local planned action - which needs to engage all relevant services - should address the following main objectives: prevention of vulnerable people becoming involved, early intervention with those at highest risk, harm reduction for those who are involved and support to help them to exit street prostitution. The plan should also address the protection of communities and the consequences of urban regeneration. It should examine how to influence attitudes towards prostitution.

Linked to these measures to strengthen and co-ordinate policy and practice would be a review of law to complement the overall objectives.

Sections 7 to 10

These sections set out in greater detail the recommended content of the local strategic plan, addressing:

  • prevention,
  • early intervention,
  • harm reduction,
  • exiting prostitution, and
  • co-ordinating the process.

Section 11

This section considers the legal position and proposes continued legal protection of those vulnerable to involvement in prostitution. It also proposes a review of the law on soliciting. The change proposed would replace criminalisation of soliciting per se with a focus on the offensive behaviour or conduct arising from a prostitution related sexual transaction - whether the offensive behaviour or conduct is caused by purchaser or seller.

The implications of this change are discussed both in respect of deterrence of 'kerb crawling' and with regard to the role of 'managed zones'. The approach proposed would obviate the need for specific legislative action regarding 'kerb crawling' - which could be policed on a basis of public offence under the changes in law suggested. It would also amend the case for 'management zones' as a possible useful local strategy for focusing service delivery and managing nuisance arising from street prostitution. This would change from a case based on discretionary suspension of the criminal law to one which is within the law and can be considered and used in the right circumstances as part of the agreed local strategy.

Page updated: Monday, April 03, 2006