ABSTRACT
Brookman and Maguire (2003) place prevention of violence and homicide in the context of approaches to crime reduction in general, noting that strategies to reduce crime against vulnerable people or in vulnerable locations ‘rely on predictions about where, when and/or by what kinds of person offences are likely to be committed, so that interventions can be targeted at particular “hotspots” (or populations).’ I also ask the where, when and by whom questions, focusing particularly on violence that takes place when the victims are engaged in selling sex, where it occurs and by whom the violence is committed. The question of who becomes a victim has largely been answered by previous explorations of sex workers’ risk of violence. While the proportion who have experienced various kinds of attack may vary from survey to survey, where street and indoor situations have been compared, the most important findings are that street work is more dangerous than indoor work, and that indoor work is safer if working with other people (McKeganey and Barnard 1996; Church et al. 2001; Ward et al. 1999; Kinnell 2004). These findings are clear and unequivocal, but they have yet to have any impact on sex work policy, as Brookman and Maguire noted in the context of sex workers’ risk of homicide:
The feasibility of many preventive strategies depends largely on the legal position of prostitutes and police enforcement practices. This is clearly an area of direct relevance to homicide reduction which would benefit from further research and more imaginative initiatives. (Brookman and Maguire 2003) 1
