Street Watch: Concept and Practice: Civilian Participation in Street Prostitution Control

Diverse risks, diverse perpetrators: perceptions of risk and experiences of violence amongst street-based sex workers in New Zealand

“…Violence may also comprise harassment from community protestors who hassle street-based sex workers in an attempt to drive them out of the area (Morgan Thomas 2009;Sagar 2005;Sanders 2004b;Williams 2008). Street-based sex workers may also experience frequent verbal abuse from passers-by, according to studies conducted in the UK, USA, New Zealand and Australia (Day et al 2001;Miller and Schwartz 1995;Nixon et al 2002;Pitcher et al 2006;Prostitution Law Review Committee 2008;Sharpe 1998 covert removal of the condom, verbal abuse and being 'ripped off' (Nixon et al 2002;Sanders and Campbell 2007).…”

Examining the displacement practices of johns with on-line data

“…Considering that johns are highly mobile, often operating out of cars or on foot, they may draw less attention from law enforcement. As a consequence, johns may be able to obviate the wide range of situational crime prevention strategies employed to reduce levels of street prostitution (Matthews, 1993(Matthews, , 1997Norton-Hawk, 2001;Sagar, 2005;Scott & Dedel, 2006).…”

“…In addition, johns use these methods to describe and warn others about the presence of law enforcement or particularly active community groups in a given area (see Holt & Blevins, 2007). As a result, these on-line forums can provide insight into the nature of displacement and the methods johns use to obviate the wide range of targeted law enforcement strategies to reduce levels of street prostitution (see Matthews, 1993Matthews, , 1997Norton-Hawk, 2001;Sagar, 2005;Scott & Dedel, 2006). Web forums have become an increasingly important resource to understand offender behavior, as they enable direct and observable communications between individuals to discuss a variety of topics (see Holt, 2007;Mann & Sutton, 1998).…”

Tackling on-street sex work

“…There is little doubt that on-street sex work causes social disturbance (Matthews, 1993;Benson and Matthews, 1995;Hubbard, 1998;Sagar, 2005) although the actual severity of the disturbance has been disputed (McLeod, 1982;Lopez-Jones, 1999). None the less, it is indisputable that the police, working alone, have failed to resolve the problem.…”

“…However, the lack of success of short-term aggressive policing strategies has prompted agency collaboration between the local authority, police and the public since the 1980s. Collaborations have resulted in the implementation of several exclusive multi-agency initiatives, including traffic calming measures (Lowman, 1992) and police/public Street Watch partnerships (Hubbard, 1998(Hubbard, , 2004Sagar, 2005). The problem is that these exclusionary initiatives focus firmly on residential protection (O'Neill, 1997) and simply aim to drive out sex workers from affected areas-they do nothing to tackle the causes of on-street sex work (Hubbard, 2004).…”