Posts Tagged ‘policing’

Resisting increases in police funding: Money that could be better spent on communities

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NPMP statement in support of the STOP THE SCANDAL campaign

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The Northern Police Monitoring Project (NPMP) wishes to offer its full support to the Stop the Scandal campaign launched by the Racial Justice Network and Yorkshire Resists. The stop and scan initiative allows police to check people’s fingerprints in the street against immigration and crime databases.  

As the Stop the Scandal campaign has argued, the introduction of this scheme acts to ‘turn the UK police into a border force’. This scheme has been introduced without due consultation with the public, and there is no indication of: any checks against officer discrimination, checks against (racist) issues with the biometric technology, and checks of the accuracy of Home Office immigration databases. Given robust evidence of racism at all levels of policing, including evidence of racial discrimination in biometrics and data, stop and scan will undoubtedly impact most harshly on Black and Brown communities.

The interlocking of policing and immigration control agencies is likely to perpetuate racism and contribute to what is already a ‘hostile environment’ for People of Colour who live with the ubiquitous threats of detention, deportation, criminalisation and incarceration.

We encourage people to support the Stop the Scandal campaign, and particularly it’s demands that the Home Office:

To find out more or support the campaign, visit the website (www.stopthescan.co.uk), sign the petition (https://tinyurl.com/y49ltaez), and help spread the word about this oppressive practice.  

Northern Police Monitoring Project: Public Statement, National Stephen Lawrence Day

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Today – the 22 April 2019 – marks the first National Stephen Lawrence Day. It provides us with an important opportunity to commemorate the life of Stephen. And it provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the work that still needs to be done to support local people, communities and campaigns in the face of police harassment, intimidation, violence and racism.

The Macpherson Inquiry into the police handling of the murder of Stephen in 1993 found the police to be ‘institutionally racist’. Twenty years since its publication, racism within policing continues to be a problem. We see this in racially disproportionate stop and search, deaths following police contact, and in the use of tasers.

We must recognise that racism remains embedded within the functioning of the police. As Ambalavaner Sivanandan argued, it continues to reside, both overtly and covertly, “in the policies, procedures, operations and culture of public or private institutions – reinforcing individual prejudices and being reinforced by them in turn.”

Today, in Stephen’s memory, we urge the public to demand a radical re-imagining of policing and criminal justice as we know it. The Northern Police Monitoring Project stands in solidarity with Black and Brown communities, whom in the last few years have witnessed an intensification in their mistreatment at the hands of the police. In particular, we stand in solidarity with the over-policed communities of Greater Manchester – communities that feel the effects of the racist ‘gang’ narrative that is imposed upon them by the police to justify their over-policing.

Please join us for our next event in collaboration with Kids of Colour – Kids of Colour on Policing. Monday 29 April, 6pm – 8pm, Saint Peter’s House| Oxford Road| Manchester

 

LONG READ – Macpherson, twenty years on: Diversifying the police won’t end institutional racism

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In this article, Remi Joseph-Salisbury and Laura Connelly of the Northern Police Monitoring Project discuss institutional racism and the limits of calls to diversify the police force (estimated read time: 6 minutes).

It’s twenty years since the publication of the Macpherson report into the police handling of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. Macpherson’s key finding was that the Metropolitan Police were ‘institutionally racist’, a charge that has been levelled at other forces, including Greater Manchester Police. Last month, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, lauded the ‘transformative effect’ the report had on policing but lamented that ‘we still have much more to do.’ But the truth is, little has changed.

At every level of policing, racism endures as a problem. From stop and search and inclusion in ‘gang’ databases, to the use of tasers and deaths following police contact, Black people are disproportionately likely to be harmed by the police.

One of the most common and seemingly well-meaning responses to police racism is to call for greater representation of Black and Brown communities in the police force. Given that none of the 43 police forces in England and Wales currently reflects the racial demographics of their communities, this seems like a logical and relatively uncontroversial response to a long-standing problem. Last week, the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire, Mark Burns-Williamson, called for legislative changes to enable the police to attract, recruit and retain officers from ‘BAME’ backgrounds. And just a week or so prior, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Sara Thornton, suggested that new laws are needed to enable positive discrimination in police recruitment. However, to view the racial diversification of the police force as any kind of meaningful solution is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of racism. Such calls fail to take seriously the lessons of recent history, including those highlighted by Macpherson.

In recent years, we have seen a shying away from the idea that the police are institutionally racist. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, says that she doesn’t believe the police force is still institutionally racist, and Sara Thornton says the term is unhelpful ‘because it was misunderstood and taken as a slur on every officer’. Perhaps more surprisingly, despite finding racial disparities in policing, the 2017 ‘Lammy Review’ ‘avoids all mention of institutional racism’ and instead uses the more ‘palatable’ term, ‘unconscious bias’. While the concept of unconscious bias has gained traction recently, it ‘moves the centre of gravity from institutions and structures to the individual and, unfortunately, to the unconscious.’ It is by re-centring the concept of institutional racism that we can begin to understand the limits of calls for more Black police officers.  

As the term itself implies, the problem with policing should not be understood as solely the fault of individual officers. This is not to say that individual officers shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions but to recognise that racism also – and perhaps more perniciously – manifests at the level of the institution. It is, as  Macpherson put it, ‘the collective failure of an organisation’. Introduced by Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) and Charles V. Hamilton in their seminal 1967 work Black Power, the concept is important for anti-racism as it shifts our focus from the prejudices of individuals, to the systemic and embedded functioning of institutions. As Ambalavaner Sivanandan argued, ‘institutional racism is that which, covertly or overtly, resides in the policies, procedures, operations and culture of public or private institutions – reinforcing individual prejudices and being reinforced by them in turn.’ It is imbued within the very fabric of society and a defining feature of the state apparatus.  

In this respect, the concept of institutional racism allows us to challenge the dominant narrative  which constructs police brutality and racism as something that is exceptional. It helps us to see that the problem is not simply a ‘few rotten apples’ but a rotten apple cart. If we only replace the apples and not the cart, the new apples will simply rot too. Such an intervention would be fundamentally misdiagnosing the problem: treating the symptom, not the disease. This is not only a hypothetical or theoretical point but one that is supported by empirical evidence.

For example, a 2017 paper examined the correlation between police shootings and the racial demographics of police forces in the United States. The report concluded that ‘simply increasing the percentage of Black officers is not an effective policy solution’. In fact, the report found that fatal encounters between Black citizens and the police were more likely to occur in cities with higher proportions of Black officers. Based on the concept of ‘critical mass’, the authors tentatively suggest that a change in organisational culture might be possible when Black officers constitute at least 30% of a police force. But the authors are, quite rightly, reluctant to say whether or not this would reduce the number of Black deaths at the hands of the police.

Calls for more Black officers are flawed for a number of reasons. Firstly, they assume that racial solidarity exists between Black officers and the Black communities that they police. Yet as Forman argues in Locking Up Our Own, many Black officers don’t see their employment as racially significant. They do not take up their jobs in an attempt to rid the police force of racism. On the contrary, US research published in 2008 found that Black police officers were actually more likely than white officers to racially profile Black drivers. Findings like these expose the ‘more Black officers’ argument to be dependent upon an essentialist assumption that all Black people are inherently anti-racist. This fails to recognise the insidious nature of racism. An individual is not incapable of having racially-prejudiced attitudes simply because they themselves are racialised as black. Perhaps more importantly – given that racism can be perpetuated without individual intent – it certainly does not reflect an inability to reproduce institutional racisms.

Relatedly, the racial diversification of the police is not only likely to be ineffective in tackling institutional racism but it also operates to give legitimacy to racist policing. Without systemic change, replacing white faces with ‘BAME’ faces is mere tokenism: a superficial intervention that threatens to obfuscate the systemic nature of racism in the police. Like Trevor Phillips’ ‘work’ condemning Black and Brown communities, Sajid Javid’s role as Home Secretary shows all too clearly that Brown faces in high places can be used to disguise racist agendas. His appointment as part of Theresa May’s ministerial reshuffle in early 2018 enabled her to make the (false) claim that the government now “looks more like the country it serves.” But Javid’s staunch advocacy of the hostile environment agenda serves as a clear reminder that he should in no way be misconstrued as having the interests of Black and Brown people at heart. More Black officers would merely create the illusion of change, lending weight to the myth that we are on the path towards inevitable equality. We are not. More Black police officers might increase trust in the police for Black and Brown communities but, unless there is radical change, perhaps Black and Brown communities are right not to trust the police.

Thirdly, even if there was a way of ensuring that the critical mass of new Black recruits were all anti-racist individuals, the ‘more Black officers’ argument only becomes thinkable when we significantly underestimate the endemic nature of institutional racism in the police. Policing fosters an insular occupational culture which can operate to deter Black (potentially anti-racist) officers from straying outside of established norms. Given the role that policing has played in protecting capitalism and maintaining colonial regimes, it should come as no surprise then that, as Alex Vitale puts it, the ‘police exist primarily as a system for managing and even producing inequality’. In this sense, even if anti-racist officers were recruited into the police, their individual agenda is likely to be supplanted by that of the institution.

Finally, calls to diversity the police force place the onus upon Black and Brown people for challenging racism and educating other officers. The responsibility for creating change becomes misplaced and, as Audre Lorde argues, ‘the oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions.’ To redress racism in the police – and elsewhere – it is important that those racialised as white, properly reckon with the inequities of white supremacy. The burden should not fall to those marginalised by the power structure, though it so often does, but to those who benefit from it.

To recognise racism as institutional therefore takes us to a difficult and deeply uncomfortable position. We begin to see that there are no easy solutions: liberal reforms simply will not do. To tackle the deep roots of racism in the police, we need nothing short of a radical re-imagining of policing and criminal justice as we know it, or what Vitale speaks of as ‘the end of policing’.

Christopher Alder Justice Campaign Appeal

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Northern Police Monitoring Project have been proud and honoured to know, support and be supported by Janet Alder. Janet is a tireless campaigner who is appealing for support in order to tell the story of her brother’s death, 20 years ago. Janet is aiming to raise £10,000 to allow her to work with a writer on a book that will reveal all the twists and turns of the state’s efforts to suppress the truth and prevent justice.

Any contributions will be very gratefully received and all those who contribute at least £20 will receive a copy of the book when it comes out (hopefully by the end of 2019 at the latest), and all those who contribute at least £15 will receive a copy of the e-book. The link to donate is here (fundrazr.com/21OzCa) and more information from Janet is below.

CHRISTOPHER ALDER
Christopher Alder was a former paratrooper decorated for his services in the Falklands; he had two children, and was in training for a new career in computer programming. On April 1, 1998, after a night out, Christopher got into a fight outside the Waterfront nightclub in Hull; after being punched in the face, he was briefly knocked unconscious and lost a tooth. An ambulance was called, and Christopher was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary, accompanied by police officers. His injuries were not deemed serious, and he was discharged, after which the police drove him to the police station one mile away.

Half an hour later he was dead.

I am Christopher’s sister and I have been campaigning to find out the truth around my brother’s death, and to hold those responsible to account, ever since. Our campaign has involved an inquest and three major court cases, slowly revealing some of the grotesque details about what was done to my brother – both before and after his death – as well as the lengths to which the British state will go to prevent justice. My book will tell the story of this campaign, and the astounding revelations it has brought out: including the following…

* By the time Christopher arrived in the police station, he was unconscious again, had lost his belt as well as another tooth, and had received new cuts to the lip and above the eye. But neither the cause of these injuries, nor their role in causing his death, have ever been investigated.
* Christopher had been left face down in the custody suite gasping for breath in the last minutes of his life, with police officers later standing around making monkey noises over his corpse – but the jury looking at the case were denied access to the CCTV audiotape which clearly revealed this.
* The official ‘investigation’ into Christopher’s death allowed all the evidence from the police van – including blood samples, CS gas canisters and clothing – to be destroyed.
* Humberside police had both myself and my lawyer under illegal surveillance whilst we prepared our court case.
* Following Christopher’s death, Humberside police raided his flat and dredged up Christopher and his siblings’ social services records in an apparent attempt to find something with which to smear us – just like they smeared the victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

* In 2011, it was discovered that the body the police had given my family to bury at Christopher’s funeral eleven years earlier had in fact been that of Grace Kamara – a 77 year old Nigerian woman. The police had kept Christopher’s body, it was finally revealed, in 6 body bags in a Hull mortuary all that time – for ‘training purposes’.
* The Home Office had apparently colluded in covering this up by repeatedly blocking – for over ten years – attempts by Grace Kamara’s family to come to England to give her a burial.

I could go on – and this book will do so. I believe Christopher’s case is not only a damning indictment of my (and Grace Kamara’s) family’s treatment by the state, but has far reaching significance for the whole of society. In particular:

1.Unlawful killing with impunity.

The inquest jury concluded that Christopher Alder was ‘unlawfully killed’, as even the British government finally admitted in 2011. Yet no one has ever been properly held to account for his killing. Christopher’s case demonstrates the total failure of the British state to hold ‘its own’ to account for their killings – and the collusion of all the various criminal justice institutions, including police, CPS, and IPCC, in this failure.

2. It keeps on happening.

Whilst Christopher himself was unique, what happened to him at the hands of the police was sadly not – and nor was the state’s denial of justice that followed. The same thing is happening again and again, with an average of one death in police custody every week.

3. Legal precedents

Several precedents have been set during the course of our campaign, including:

– In 2011, we took the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to court – the first time this had ever happened.

– Also in 2011, on the eve of our case opening at the European Court of Human Rights, the British government issued an unprecedented unilateral declaration admitting its responsibility for a death in custody, and for racial discrimination against my brother.

4. Race relations

Christopher’s case reveals the underlying racism in the British police force, which even the government has admitted is ‘institutional’. My book will set the case in the wider context of the racial supremacism that has degraded and dehumanised black people in Britain from the time of our parents’ journey to Hull from Nigeria in the 1950s until now.

I need to raise £10,000 to fund a professional writer to work with me on the book, so we can get this historic case in the public eye – and finally expose the whole truth about Christopher’s case. I will deeply appreciate any support you can give.

FURTHER INFORMATION

INQUEST briefing on the death of Christopher Alder:http://inquest.org.uk/pdf/Christopher%20Alder%20briefing.pdf

Article on Christopher’s death and the campaign: https://www.rt.com/op-edge/311384-christopher-alder-police-brutality/
IPCC report into Christopher’s death: https://www.ipcc.gov.uk/investigations/christopher-alder-humberside-police

UPCOMING EVENTS IN MARCH

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We have 2 fantastic FREE events this March.

First, on the 13th March we are co-hosting an event with our friends at Sites of ResistanceProfessor Alex Vitale joins us to spark a public discussion about the expansion of modern policing and the extent to which it is inconsistent with the values of community empowerment and social justice. Alex is a Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College, Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice project, and author of ‘The End of Policing’ (Verso).

Alex will be joined by Dr Waqas Tufail, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Leeds Beckett University. Waqas’ research examines the policing of marginalised communities and the criminalisation of Muslim minorities.

Also joining the panel will be Dr William Jackson, Lecturer in Criminology at Liverpool John Moores University. Willams’s work focuses on policing, security and protest. He has recently written on the policing of anti-fracking protesters and state violence.

The event will be held at the Cornerhouse, arrive from 17:00 for a 17:30 start, please get your free tickets via Eventbrite here

Then, on Friday 23rd March, we have a public screening of THE HARD STOP, a revealing documentary charting the story of Mark Duggan’s friends and family following his death. We’ll be joined for the evening’s discussion by the amazing local youth worker Akemia Minott and the local youth group 8 4 Youth. The event will be held at Powerhouse (140 Raby Street (M14 4SL) from 18:00 – 20:30.

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Information from the Christopher Alder Campaign for Justice: 20th Anniversary Memorial on 31st March 2018

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Christopher Alder died 20 years ago in the early hours of 1st April 1998.  He was a fit and active 37-year-old black man who was born and grew up in Hull. He had served as a paratrooper in the 1980s and he was making a life for himself back in Hull when he died.

He died slowly, hands cuffed behind his back, face down on the custody suite floor at Queens Gardens Police Station, Hull. Christopher was unconscious and struggling for breath. His breathing was getting slower and louder, and more laboured. Paramedics were called too late to save him and the whole 11 minutes sequence was recorded on custody suite video. During this time police officers laughed and joked; later on, monkey noises can be heard on the tape.

Despite Humberside Police attempts to present a different story, Janet Alder, Christopher’s sister, defied their attempts to intimidate her and their attempts to deflect her questions about her brother’s death. In search of truth and justice, she launched the Justice for Christopher Alder campaign.

In 2000 the inquest jury in Hull gave a verdict that Christopher Alder was killed unlawfully. Still no-one has been convicted in connection with this case.

This injustice remains unresolved in 2018, as are the injustices visited on Janet Alder in her campaign for justice, including:

All these are unresolved issues.

 

This is why the 20th anniversary of Christopher’s death will be commemorated by a protest gathering at 1pm on Saturday 31st March 2018 (Easter Saturday) at Queen Victoria Square, Hull.

 

PLEASE JOIN US

BLACK LIVES MATTER

NO JUSTICE – NO PEACE

 

The End of Policing… Sex Work

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Alex S. Vitale, Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College, discusses the policing of sex work and offers an excerpt from his new book The End of Policing

 

Police in Manchester and across the UK are hard at work  criminalizing people involved in sex work. We should all be concerned about poor working conditions and acts of violence and coercion that sometimes occur in this industry. What is clear, however, is that using police to manage this is counterproductive. Recent raids in Manchester conducted in the name of fighting trafficking and helping women have uncovered poor working conditions but not coercion and the women arrested or referred to services have not seen dramatic improvements in their life circumstances. Police have even admitted that many have returned to sex work. It’s time to embrace the work of groups like the English Collective of Prostitutes and the Sex Workers and Advocacy Movement (SWARM) and call for the decriminalization of sex work.

The following is an excerpt from my book The End of Policing that describes the problems with relying on police to regulate commercial sex.

When we allow police to regulate our sexual lives, we inflict tremendous harm on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Young people, poor women, and transgendered persons who rely on the sex industry to survive and even thrive are forced by police into the shadows, leaving them vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and diminished health outcomes.

Despite decades of police enforcement, commercial sexual services remain easily available, from the $5,000-a-night escorts hired by Wall Street executives and elected officials to those who turn $20 tricks in inner-city alleyways. Even when individual sex workers move out of the profession as a result of police action, others replace them, and there is never a shortage of clients. At best, police can claim that their efforts limit the extent and visibility of the sex industry. It is true that concerted intensive police enforcement can sometimes drive streetwalkers from a specific location, but they move to more remote outdoor locations or indoor ones. This may provide some benefits for residents but does nothing to reduce the overall prevalence of commercial sex or improve the lives of sex workers themselves. Commercial sex has proven largely impervious to punitive policing.

Policing has aimed not to eradicate prostitution but to drive it underground. This process leaves these workers without a means to complain when they are raped, beaten, or otherwise victimized, strengthens the hands of pimps and traffickers, and contributes to unsafe sex practices. When sex workers are forced to labor in a hidden, illegal economy, they have little recourse to the law to protect their rights and safety. Even when they are technically able to ask for police protection from violence, it is rarely forthcoming. Because of their social position and a history of disregard and abuse at the hands of police, these workers rarely see police intervention as being in their best interest. Sex workers have an interest in maintaining the anonymity of their clients; criminal prosecution and public embarrassment are bad for business. There are rarely credit-card receipts, photocopies of IDs, or surveillance footage that might be used to identify and prosecute offenders. Even when there is some evidence, victims are generally loath to open themselves up to additional police scrutiny for fear that they or their establishment might be raided.

In addition, sex workers have no ability to access basic workplace protections. They cannot complain about fire hazards or file complaints about stolen wages. They can’t sue for theft of services or contractual breaches. The only tool they have is to withhold their labor, but even this may be constrained by coercive labor practices ranging from psychological manipulation to enslavement.

Criminalization also strengthens the hand of pimps, organized criminals, and traffickers. Because there are limited legal ways of entering most sex work and because of the criminal status of most of this work which can produce huge financial rewards, third parties play an important role in recruiting and coercing participants. Also, there is a value in being able to provide protection, secure hidden work sites, and organize cooperation from the police. These services are best provided by those already involved in illegal activity. All of this makes it difficult for workers to self-organize to participate independently in the sex economy. Property rentals, security services, and advertising must all be handled covertly, often through fictitious companies or other fronts. Even streetwalkers must contend with informally organized strolls, in which more regular and organized participants either drive off newcomers or force them into their own organizations. In some cases, pimps force sex workers into their “protection” as a way of guaranteeing their ability to ply their trade. Other pimps work in true partnership with sex workers, providing support and protection for a share of the earnings.

Exploitative pimps are motivated to coerce participation in sex work by the money, and because they know that workers have little legal recourse. Police often view these sex workers as offenders rather than victims and fail to take their requests for help seriously. Also, those who are pressured, coerced, or even voluntarily enter this work often come from very disadvantaged circumstances and may have mental health and substance abuse problems or have been the victims of childhood sexual abuse. All of this contributes to social isolation and vulnerability that makes them easier to control. Simplistic “rescue” efforts fail to deal with the depth of isolation and hardship facing these people. Sex workers who are offered counseling and drug treatment but not jobs and housing will often return to sex work, even in an abusive form, because they are not given a sustainable way out. Exploiters capitalize on this dynamic to keep them isolated and dependent.

The illegality of both sex work and drugs creates profit incentives for organized crime to link the two. Sex workers are sometimes given drugs or pressured to become drug dependent as a way of managing them. Others become enticed or coerced into sex work to maintain their drug habits. Clients are also often offered drugs as part of their sexual experience. Offering these two services in tandem is wildly profitable for organized crime, since the avenues of distribution and the provision of security from police and competitors often overlap.

Marginalization also contributes to unsafe sex practices. One of the most troubling is that police often regard possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution. Since streetwalkers often work in cars, parks, or other informal locations, the only way to ensure safe sex practices is to carry condoms. They must then weigh the long-term risks of disease against the short-term risks of arrest and prosecution. Clients will sometimes pay more for sex without condoms, and pimps can drive women to earn more in this way or risk abuse.

Finally, while a few cities, such as San Francisco, have public health clinics for sex workers, many workers have difficulty accessing appropriate care because they lack health insurance and fear being stigmatized or criminalized. Finally, the police themselves have been implicated in demanding unprotected sex as a condition of avoiding arrest.

 Police corruption plays a major role in the abuse and marginalization of sex workers and undermines public confidence in the police. Vice crimes such as gambling, prostitution, and substance abuse lend themselves to police corruption for a number of reasons. Police can enact harsh penalties, and those engaged in illegal activity usually have the resources to buy them off. Furthermore, enforcement is largely discretionary, so there is tremendous temptation for police to look the other way in return for bribes or actively pursue bribes as a form of “rent seeking,” in which they use their position to maximize extorted earnings.

In just the last few years, American police have been implicated in running and providing protection for brothels, demanding sex from prostitutes to avoid arrest, hiring underage prostitutes, acting as pimps, stealing from and assaulting sex workers, and demanding bribes from prostitutes and their clients. There is no way to know the full extent of these practices, but the problem is widespread and ongoing. A 2005 survey of sex workers found that 14 percent had had sexual experiences with police and 16 percent had experienced police violence, while only 16 percent reported having had a good experience going to the police for help. Another study found that a third of the violence young sex workers experienced came at the hands of police.

The goal of any new approach to sex work should be to take the coercion out of the process while understanding that, whether you personally find it distasteful or not, sex work will continue. Therefore, we should endeavor to improve the lives of sex workers and offer them voluntary pathways out of a job that can be difficult, demeaning, and even dangerous. While those who fit the idealized image of the college student paying her way through school with sex work before going on to a successful “legitimate” career are a small sliver of the market, many choose this work over low-paid employment in sweatshops, diners, hotels, and kitchens. All of these workplaces can also be demeaning, dangerous, and even sexually exploitative—just ask domestic workers in Singapore, maquiladora workers in Mexico, or hotel maids in Manhattan.

In upstate New York, Susan Dewey found that almost all the sex workers she interviewed had previous employment and that most cycled between sex work and low-paid service work. Most preferred sex work because of the potential for financial windfalls, whereas service work was “exploitative, exclusionary, and without hope of social mobility or financial stability.”

From Mexico to New Zealand to rural Nevada, decriminalizing or regulating sex work reduces harm to sex workers, their clients, and communities, with very little role for the police. Decriminalized sex work has dramatically reduced the role of organized crime and police corruption and in many cases allows for greatly improved working conditions in which sanitation, safety, and safe sex practices are widespread and reinforced through government oversight. Civilian health workers rather than police are the primary agents of regulation, encouraging greater cooperation and compliance. This approach also undermines the view of sex workers as helpless victims in need of saving, which is degrading, stigmatizing, and simply inaccurate.

Do these approaches encourage sexual commerce by giving it the patina of legitimacy? Perhaps. But if the central social concerns of coercion and disease are being managed more effectively than under prohibition, isn’t that a success? We should embrace these approaches as a starting point for policies that directly address social harms rather than moral panics. While commercial sex work will always have harm attached to it, so do legal sweatshops. In fact, the subordinate position of women in our economy and culture is the real harm left unaddressed by prohibition. Despite the lofty goals of abolitionists, as long as they are denied equal economic and political rights and equal pay for equal work, women will be forced into marginal forms of employment. As long as women and LGBTQ people are poor, socially isolated, and lack social and political power; as long as runaway and “throw away” kids have no place to turn but the streets, they will be at risk of trafficking and coercion. Neither the police nor the “rescuers” seem keen to address these social and economic realities.

 

Alex S. Vitale is a professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing & Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College. He is the author of The End of Policing and tweets at @avitale