Unpicking the relationship between police practice and commercial sex, this book explores key issues including: trafficking, decriminalisation, localised impacts of punitive policing approaches, uneven policing approaches, hate-crime approaches and impact of policing on trans-sex workers.

List of contributorsAcknowledgementsIntroduction: policing the sex industry: tackling exploitation, facilitating safety? Teela Sanders and Mary Laing Part 1: Protection through policing: plurality and pragmatismChapter 1: Policing sex work in the UK: a patchwork approach. Alex Feis-Bryce Chapter 2: Trans sex workers in the UK: security, services and safety Mary Laing, Del Campbell, Matthew Jones and Angelika Strohmayer Chapter 3: Beyond hate: policing sex work, protection and hate crime Rosie Campbell Chapter 4: Decriminalisation, policing and sex work in New Zealand Lynzi Armstrong Chapter 5: ‘Not in our name’: findings from Wales supporting the decriminalisation of sex work Tracey Sagar and Debbie Jones Part 2 Policing Operations, enforcement and austerityChapter 6: Policing the absence of the victim: an ethnography of raids in sex trafficking operations Julia LeserChapter 7: Trafficking, pimping, sex work and the police: stree prostitutes' perceptions in Las Vegas Andrew L. Spivak Chapter 8: The condom as evidence and the condom as a crowbar Synnøve JahnsenChapter 9: Gentrification and the criminalization of sex work: exploring the sanitization of sex work in Kings Cross with the use of ASBOs and CBOs Lucy Neville and Erin Sanders-McDonagh

Drawing on a wealth of international experience, this collection provides fascinating and important insight into contemporary debates about policing and sex work. Covering, as it does, issues such as hate crime, migration, police integrity, vigilantism, and morality, the book makes a significant contribution to much wider debates within criminology and sociology. Students, academics, policy-makers and concerned citizens will find much insight in this impressive book.Mike Rowe, Professor of Criminology, Northumbria University, UKProstitution continues to attract varied policy responses, from prohibitionism to decriminalisation. Focusing on the pivotal role of the police, this book provides an authoritative international overview of the enforcement of these policies and demonstrates the importance of policing in shaping the well-being of sex workers, their clients and the communities in which they work. Recognising the complexity and increasing plurality of police practices, this collection offers real insight into the models of policing which effectively protect sex workers whilst penalising those who seek to exploit or harm them. An important and timely collection that demands to be read by all those involved in the formulation and evaluation of prostitution policy.Phil Hubbard, Professor of Urban Studies, Kings College London, UKSanders and Laing have assembled an absorbing collection that serves as an important intervention in the sex-work debate. United by a rigorous yet passionate approach to the subject of sex work, these chapters are as lucid as they are thought-provoking. A must read for anyone interested in the sex work debate.Chris Ashford, Professor of Law and Society, Director of Research and Innovations and Law, Northumbria University, UKThe growing demand for high quality research on sex work is well served by this unrivalled collection of chapters on policing. It is an impressive and coherent collection which gives great insight into the complex world of contemporary policing. By reaching across the globe, the editors have produced an articulate cross-cultural compendium of modern policing as applied to sexual labour. It is both highly theorised and at the same time highly readable so that scholars, not just of sexuality, but also of community policing and personal safety will find this far-reaching collection invaluable.Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Reader in Psychology,University of London, UK