REGULATING STREET PROSTITUTION AND KERB-CRAWLING

Abstract

There has been a renewed interest over the last few years in public order offences. This has occurred for a number of reasons. First, criminologists and others have become increasingly aware that problems of what is generally termed 'disorder' can have a devastating effect upon social life and community cohesion (Skogan 1990; Wilson and Kelling 1982). In some cases the effects of disorder or 'incivilities' may be even more destructive than those of crime. Secondly, problems of disorder tend to be not so much a series of discrete acts as a 'condition', and may become an integrated feature of social relations (Kelling 1987). Thirdly, problems of disorder tend to be localized, concen trated in certain inner-city areas. Many of these may also be high-crime areas, but this is not necessarily so (Hope and Hough 1988; Matthews 1991a). Fourthly, and consequentially, public order problems create particular problems of regulation (Ramsey 1989): they are rarely amenable to traditional methods of policing and call for more comprehensive and imaginative responses. There have been significant changes both in the prevalence of disorder and in public attitudes towards these issues. Interestingly, much of the impetus to develop new approaches appears to come from 'below' rather than 'above' and signals a change in the levels of public tolerance and changing conceptions of public and private space. As concern increases around issues such as street drug-trading, public drunkenness and rowdiness, intimidation, and harassment on the street, growing interest has been expressed by researchers and policy-makers in historical and cross-cultural research to help to develop an adequate response. John Lowman's (1992) article on the control of street prostitution is a welcome contribution to this development. The question Lowman raises in his article is whether the approach which was employed to reduce the levels of street prostitution and kerb-crawling in Finsbury Park, in north London, could be adapted to the situation in Vancouver. The significance of the Finsbury Park initiative was that it transformed a well established 'red light' area into a relatively tranquil residential area over a two-year period. One of a number of attempts throughout the country to grapple with this issue (Matthews 1986a), it was different from most of the other interventions in that it was substantially more successful, and in that it not only provided a temporary reprieve from the problems associated with a high concentration of street prostitution, but did so with an apparently low level of displacement. It was the visible signs of this transformation in the social and personal life of the residents in this area—particularly women—which initially attracted my attention. The research which was carried out indicated that it was the departure from traditional styles of policing towards a more comprehensive multi-agency approach, in which the