Gender, ASB powers and Sex
Workers
Tracey Sagar
Swansea University
1. ASB powers – gendered?
2. ASBOs and Public Nuisance Injunctions
(PNIs) against sex workers.
3. ASB mechanisms and multi-agency
exit work.
4. A coercive strategy?
The gendered construction of the anti-social
subject
• Third Way = ‘Patriarchy Pathology’ Brown (2004)
• Mothers not fathers paying the price for family ASB.
There is a relationship between financial deprivation and
the inability to fulfil parenting responsibilities. Lister
(2006)
• ASB is concentrated in deprived areas Millie
(forthcoming)
• Economic solvency equates to social inclusion. Cameron
(2007)
Characteristics of sex workers
• Poverty (70% are believed to be lone parent
mothers)
• Homelessness
• Low self esteem
• Poor educational achievement
New Labour’s approach to tackling
street sex work
• Prostitution is not inevitable
• Prostitutes are victims who need help
• Those who exploit prostitutes must be
brought to justice
• The demand side must be targeted
• The community must be protected
The ASBO
• ASBOs deployed against sex workers in
1999
• ASBOs were issued outside of a multiagency problem solving approach
• Displacement was an objective
Criticisms
• ASBOs impacted on Human Rights
• Displacement is not a solution to street
sex work
• Where was the multi-agency approach?
Hester and Westmarland (2004)
Sex workers have wide ranging needs
Services have to be tailored to individual need
The exit process is very complicated. Women
can access services many times before
they leave the streets
ASBOs may impact negatively on a sex
worker’s ability to access services
ASBO’s and Sex workers?
• Issue ASBOs where appropriate
(persistent offenders)
• Link ASBOs to support services
PUBLIC NUISANCE
INJUNCTIONS
• 20 issued against sex workers in Edgbaston in
2002/2003
• What is public nuisance?
Public nuisance is defined as any nuisance
“which materially affects the reasonable
comfort and convenience of a life of a class
of her majesty’s subjects” (Att. Gen v PYA Quarries Ltd 1957)
Section 222 of the Local Authority Act 1972
enables local authorities to apply
for injunctions to promote or protect the interests of the inhabitants
where the authority considers it expedient to do so.
• Hearsay evidence is admissible
• Injunctions can exclude sex workers from
a specified area
• Injunctions can prohibit soliciting and
loitering
• Injunctions can last indefinitely
• Breach of an injunction – up to two years
Reforms ahead? Proposals in the
2007 CCIB (now lost)
• Persons (not common prostitutes) should face
prosecution for persistent soliciting only
• Offenders should not be fined but ordered to
meet a supervisor on three occasions within a
six month period to identify ways of preventing
engagement in such future conduct
• Where an offender fails to meet the supervisor
on three occasions, he/she is not rehabilitated
and should be detained in prison for 72 hours
Will coercion into rehab work?
• Can the criminal justice system and treatment services
develop social capital and contribute towards desistance
from drug use and offending behaviour by addressing
family problems and providing legitimate employment
opportunities? McSweeny et.al.(2006)
• More research into sex workers’ social networks. Social
support can promote physical and mental well-being
particularly in times of stress
• The social structures that cause women to sell sex in the
first place need to be addressed.