Police repression or veiled regulation?

It is possible to identify three approaches for controlling prostitution in the nineteenth century: laissez-faire, state regulation, and police repression. For the first half of the century the police appear to have been ‘reluctant agents of moral reform’. ¹ They adopted the laissez-faire approach to controlling prostitution and seldom interfered with brothels unless the inhabitants committed crimes or disturbed the peace. They also endeavoured to keep ‘prostitutes’ from making too great a nuisance of themselves by controlling street disorders and public drunkenness. Their actual effectiveness, however, is difficult to judge. For example in 1839 the Aberdeen police lacked the authority to respond to complaints about the ‘indecent and blasphemous language used by the large numbers of profligate and dissolute females’ who congregated in the Castle Street area, except by forcing them to ‘move on’, which was ineffective because they returned once the patrol had left. ² In 1857 the police estimated that about 400 ‘prostitutes’ and many brothels were in Aberdeen, but they were handicapped by the lack of statutory power to deal adequately with complaints. ³ Similarly, in 1849 the Glasgow police conducted a survey of brothels which revealed that there were 211, housing 538 ‘prostitutes’. The number found walking the streets was 500, but the police lacked the authority to put this information to use other than by making it available to philanthropists. By the middle of the century, laissez-faire policing came under attack and local state authorities were forced to respond to mounting public pressure which demanded that the police and magistrates be granted the authority to close brothels, suppress soliciting, and maintain order in the streets.