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1 – 10 of 327
Article
Publication date: 1 June 2005

Michael Clark and Sandra Squires

This articles makes the case for using existing adult protection provision to improve the wellbeing of street prostitutes, whose circumstances often render them vulnerable and in…

Abstract

This articles makes the case for using existing adult protection provision to improve the wellbeing of street prostitutes, whose circumstances often render them vulnerable and in need of better co‐ordinated support.

Details

The Journal of Adult Protection, vol. 7 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1466-8203

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2003

Margaret Melrose

This article considers the issues of ‘street prostitution’ and ‘community safety’ in terms of the discursive construction of each. It argues that in the late‐modern age, concepts…

Abstract

This article considers the issues of ‘street prostitution’ and ‘community safety’ in terms of the discursive construction of each. It argues that in the late‐modern age, concepts such as ‘community’ and ‘safety’ are problematic and their meaning cannot be taken for granted. The discussion then probes discursive constructions of ‘the prostitute’ and explores the causes of prostitution, its legal regulation and the apparent resilience of street sex markets to various forms of intervention in different places and at different times. The article concludes by considering prostitute women as members of the community and reflects on what this might mean in terms of community safety strategies.

Details

Safer Communities, vol. 2 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-8043

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Article
Publication date: 18 November 2019

Catherine Marcum, Elicka Sparks, Shelly Clevenger and Jeffrey Sedlacek

To date, there is a gap in the literature exploring the perceptions and experiences of law enforcement regarding enforcement of online and offline prostitution. The purpose of…

Abstract

Purpose

To date, there is a gap in the literature exploring the perceptions and experiences of law enforcement regarding enforcement of online and offline prostitution. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of law enforcement in the USA regarding the safety and mobility of individuals who prostitute online compared to those who sell sexual services offline. The next section will explain the methodology of the exploratory study, including the method of original data collection.

Design/methodology/approach

All police departments in the USA located in a jurisdiction of 50,000 people or more were requested participation in the study (n=689). Respondents were sent an initial mailing of a cover letter and survey, followed by an e-mail reminder and a second mailing of a cover letter and survey. Individual respondents were asked questions about their own perceptions of behaviors and lifestyles of offline vs online prostitutes.

Findings

The majority of law enforcement respondents did not feel as if online prostitutes were safer compared to offline prostitutes. However, the majority of respondents did believe that online prostitutes are afforded a better lifestyle and are more mobile.

Research limitations/implications

The majority of the respondents were from the Northeast and Southwest may mean that their perceptions could be different from those that are not located within either region. In addition, since almost 80 percent of the agencies were in a jurisdiction with a population between 50,000 and 249,000, this too may have influenced their perceptions. Law enforcement in a smaller or larger area may have felt differently or have had different experiences to report.

Originality/value

This study is very unique as to date, another study with the same methodology and question content was not found.

Details

Policing: An International Journal, vol. 43 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 October 2010

Linda Cusick, Kathryn McGarry, Georgina Perry and Sian Kilcommons

In this paper, academics and managers of specialist services reflect on the shifting policy and funding landscapes that shape service provision for drug‐using sex workers in…

Abstract

In this paper, academics and managers of specialist services reflect on the shifting policy and funding landscapes that shape service provision for drug‐using sex workers in England and Ireland. The paper outlines the harm reduction and holistic principles that underpinned much original service provision concerned with public health in the face of an HIV epidemic and the limitations of services that equate drug use minimisation with sex work minimisation. It concludes that an ‘exiting’ and victim discourse dovetails with the well‐funded crime and disorder agenda, and that lobbyists on these issues are proving to be natural allies against harm reduction.

Details

Safer Communities, vol. 9 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-8043

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Article
Publication date: 3 October 2016

Victor Zheng and Siu-lun Wong

The paper aims to explore the road to independence of the less-fortunate women in early Hong Kong society and their means in passing of wealth after death. In the 1970s, about 400…

Abstract

Purpose

The paper aims to explore the road to independence of the less-fortunate women in early Hong Kong society and their means in passing of wealth after death. In the 1970s, about 400 Chinese wills from the 1840s to the 1940s were dug up on a construction site in Hong Kong. One-fourth of these were from women who had held a substantial amount of property. How they obtained this property intrigued us because, at that time, women were seen as subordinate to men and excluded from the labor market. Why they had wills led to further questions about Hong Kong society of that time and the role of women in it.

Design/methodology/approach

The analysis of this paper is based on archival data gathered from the Hong Kong Public Records Office. These data include 98 women’s wills filed from the 1840s to the 1940s and a 500-page government investigation report on the prostitution industry released in 1879. The former recorded valuable information of brief testators’ family and personal life history, amount of assets, and profolio of investment, etc. The latter included testimonials of brothel keepers and prostitutes and their life stories and the background of legalizing prostitution in early Hong Kong. Apart from basic quantitative analysis on women’s marital status, number of properties, nature of wills and number of brothels, qualitative analysis is directed to review the testator’s life of self-reliance, wealth accumulation and reasons of using wills for arranging wealth transmission after death.

Findings

In this paper, the authors found that because the colonial government declared prostitution legal, and only women could obtain employment by becoming prostitutes or brothel keepers, they earned their own livelihood, saved money and finally became independent. However, because these professions were not seen as “decent”, and these women were excluded from the formal marriage system, intestacy could cause problems for them. Through their socio-business connections, they became familiar with the Western concept of testate inheritance. So, they tended to use wills – a legal document by which a person assigns someone to distribute his or her property according to his or her wishes after his or her death – to assign their property.

Research limitations/implications

Because only archival data are chosen for analysis, the research results may lack generalizability. Follow-up researches to examine whether the studied women acquired their wealth through their own work or simply as gifts from others are required.

Originality/value

This paper explores the understudied women’s life and method of estate passing after death in the early Hong Kong society. It fills the academic gap of women’s contribution to Hong Kong’s success and enriches our understanding on the important factors that could attribute women’s real independence.

Details

Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, vol. 12 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1871-2673

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 23 March 2012

Alexandra Oliveira

In this paper, the aim is to present an historical analysis to account for the association between prostitution, disease, and victimization. It also seeks to examine how…

388

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper, the aim is to present an historical analysis to account for the association between prostitution, disease, and victimization. It also seeks to examine how stigmatization and rejection are currently focused on the immigrant sex worker.

Design/methodology/approach

The analysis is based on historical data about regulations in Portugal, in a recent ethnography carried out with street prostitutes and in a current study on immigrant sex workers and health care.

Findings

Sex workers have been recognized as a group “at risk” both because they are associated with sexually transmitted diseases and because they are acknowledged as victims of traffic and sexual exploitation. This label “group at risk” justifies some state policies often expressed in sanitary and social control measures, as regulations. Because migrant sex workers are simultaneously immigrants and sex workers they are perceived as a threat to social order and a sign of moral disorder and, so, they experience processes of rejection and stigmatization more significantly than local sex workers.

Originality/value

The knowledge of the negative consequences experienced by migrant sex workers implies an effort to produce changes in the policies and practices towards them. All those involved in research or intervention with migrant sex workers have the responsibility to be aware of the discrimination, violence, and control they are subjected to and must be committed enough to challenge them. This paper can be a contribution to that.

Details

International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, vol. 8 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1747-9894

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Article
Publication date: 9 December 2011

Daniel Briggs, Sébastien Tutenges, Rebecca Armitage and Dimitar Panchev

This article aims to offer an ethnographic account of substances and sex and how they are interrelated in the context of one holiday destination popular among British youth…

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to offer an ethnographic account of substances and sex and how they are interrelated in the context of one holiday destination popular among British youth. Current research on British youth abroad and their use of substances is based almost exclusively on survey methods. Similarly, the same research works do not explore, in sufficient detail, sexual relations outside of those purely between British tourists.

Design/methodology/approach

The article is based on 38 focus groups, observations, and informal conversations undertaken in San Antonio, Ibiza during the summers of 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Findings

The paper complements current knowledge on sex and substances abroad by discussing the role of promotion representatives, strippers and prostitutes, and the use of drugs and alcohol, emphasising how substances feature in the promotion of sex. Bakhtin's concept of the “carnivalesque” is adopted to understand these behaviours.

Originality/value

Current research is almost exclusively based on sex between tourists; therefore, sexual encounters with other social players in holiday resorts have been largely neglected.

Details

Drugs and Alcohol Today, vol. 11 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1745-9265

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 March 2011

Natalie Scerra

This paper aims to examine the influence of police cultural knowledge on the investigation of violent serial crimes. Specifically, it aims to identify whether such knowledge…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the influence of police cultural knowledge on the investigation of violent serial crimes. Specifically, it aims to identify whether such knowledge impacts the way in which investigative techniques are implemented. Of particular interest is the police knowledge specific to victims of violent serial crimes.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study analysis of five incidents of serial murder and four incidents of serial rape in Australia was conducted. This included a qualitative analysis of cold case files from New South Wales Police, Australia. These data were triangulated with data obtained from interviews with detectives who had investigated incidents of serial murder and serial rape from that agency.

Findings

The police cultural knowledge relating to the victims of these crimes at the time of reporting negatively impacted the subsequent investigation of these cases. This resulted in a marked delay in the recognition of cases as part of a series of crimes and a delay in the allocation of investigative resources. This knowledge was informed by police experience in street policing, not from experience in the investigation of violent serial crimes.

Research limitations/implications

This paper is limited to selected cases of serial crimes that occurred in Australia.

Practical implications

This research suggests that police cultural understandings of victims need to be reviewed and changed to include knowledge of serial crime victims, offenders and their crimes. Such changes could contribute to improved recognition of related crimes as being serial in nature, essentially opening the way to preventing further victimisation.

Originality/value

There is no research that considers the impact of police cultural knowledge on the investigation of violent serial crime, and its subsequent contribution to the length of time of the series of crimes remains unconnected.

Details

Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, vol. 34 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 2007

Justin Gaffney

The recently published Home Office strategy document, A co‐ordinated prostitution strategy and a summary of responses to Paying the price (Home Office, 2006), focuses on the role…

Abstract

The recently published Home Office strategy document, A co‐ordinated prostitution strategy and a summary of responses to Paying the price (Home Office, 2006), focuses on the role of men in prostitution. However, this focus is centred on men being the abusers of women and children involved in the sex industry, and vilifies men as the perpetrators that drive the sex market. This article traces the implications of the strategy for men involved in prostitution.

Details

Safer Communities, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-8043

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 March 2010

Gregor Gall

The purpose of this paper is to examine contemporary sex worker labour unionism in a number of major western economies because it now faces an acute historical dilemma of being…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine contemporary sex worker labour unionism in a number of major western economies because it now faces an acute historical dilemma of being forced into acting as the antithesis of what it professes and aims to be, namely, elite pressure groups.

Design/methodology/approach

Interviews and structured e‐mail dialogues with sex worker union activists were supplemented with an array of secondary sources and documentation, the authors of which are sex workers union activists themselves.

Findings

This loss of initial momentum for sex worker unionization projects concerned paucity of human resources, the limited spread of a “sex work” consciousness among sex workers, and ambivalence from potential allies. Consequently, sex worker unions concentrated on engaging in political lobbying on public policy, projects of legal reform of sex work, and helping provide individualized assistance to sex workers inside and outside their worksites on health issues, criminal offences and business matters. Thus, nascent or weakened labour unions in the sex industry acted as pressure groups concerned with work issues in a way in which other pressure groups operate on non‐work issues, thereby forsaking a key characteristic of labour unionism, namely, the focus of collective self‐activity in and on the workplace and from a basis on having a tangible presence in the workplace through membership among workers.

Practical implications

This research is of value to researchers, practitioners and policy makers, for it shows how workers seek collective interest representation through collective means in an environment of “atypical” work and employment.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to a growing body of work studying sex work and sex workers from what can be termed conventional, sociological and organizational behavioural approaches. The result of this is to be able to understand the processes and outcomes of their activities and exchanges as economic and social transactions rather than deviancy.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 29 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

1 – 10 of 327