ABSTRACT
The geography of visible prostitution has been the focus of moral concern and political remedies for generations, but until relatively recently it was regarded as the business of the police to combat street sex work in areas where it was deemed unacceptable. During the 1990s, however, this changed. Day et al. (1996) noted increasing intolerance of street prostitution by local residents from the start of the 1990s, when street workers in Tower Hamlets had to wear sunglasses to protect themselves from aerosol attacks by vigilantes and gangs patrolled the streets of Birkenhead with Rotteweiler dogs. Several areas saw community actions against street prostitution, in which local residents directly prevented sex workers from soliciting and discouraged kerb-crawlers from driving along the streets. Some police spokesmen initially expressed disquiet about the potential for vigilantism in these community activities, but when they were successful in driving street work out of neighbourhoods where formerly the police had to invest heavily in enforcement in response to community demands, objections about ‘potential for vigilantism’ became muted. Local politicians also enthusiastically aligned themselves with these protests, and over the past few years they have slotted easily into New Labour concepts of community responsibility for tackling anti-social behaviour.
