Police perspectives on the policing of sex work in London, UK

• In Event: POL Panel 2. How do police represent themselves, what do they think and how does this influence policing?

Abstract

This paper presents police officer perspectives on what the policing of sex work means for them as individuals and for the police organisation. The research, based on interviews with 24 police officers, explores how officers make sense of the complexities of street and brothel work, as a small but very visible part of the broader landscape of sex work in a global city like London. It highlights the varied and often contradictory aims that the police are striving to achieve simultaneously, whilst responding to the demands of various stakeholders such as the community, the senior leadership team, outreach and third sector organisations, sex workers themselves, as well as, officers’ own priorities. Interviewees seem to be aware of the low levels of trust and confidence in the police but displayed a certain guilelessness about whether and how their actions (or lack of) might have an impact on sex worker wellbeing.
The research identifies a lack of strategic vision at the organisational level and ambiguity around local ownership of the police response to sex work. It reveals consequent uncertainty about what the policing aims should be, how should they be prioritised, how should scarce policing resources be allocated, and how should conflicting expectations of the police be resolved. The paper proposes that sex workers’ deep distrust of the police might therefore result from, not only experience of individual officers’ actions (or inaction) and historical suspicion of the police as an institution, but be rooted in broader organisational and structural factors that frame the policing of sex work in a democracy.

Authors

• Jyoti Belur, UCL

• Ella Cockbain, UCL