Containment: Managing Street Prostitution in London, 1918–1959

The Social Geography of Prostitution in Edinburgh, 1900–1939

“…Laite and Slater have shown how highly popularised cases of women being falsely arrested for soliciting, such as that of Elizabeth Cass in 1887 and Irene Savidge in 1928, made police more reluctant to arrest women they suspected of being prostitutes. 67 During the 1927 Street Offences Committee set up to investigate the effectiveness of solicitation laws several questions were raised about the possibility of false arrest in Scotland and about how the forces ensured that this did not occur. Mr Macpherson, public prosecutor for Edinburgh, insisted that false arrest was extremely unlikely and uncommon because of the thorough cautioning system.…”

“…8 Similarly, Stefan Slater suggests that in London during the early twentieth century police attempted to contain prostitution by focusing their limited recourses on policing the central 'recognised vice areas'. 9 However, Julia Laite's research has found that although the criminalisation of prostitution in London increased during the early twentieth century this did not result in the containment of commercial sex to 'one red light zone' and instead prostitution spread out across many different areas of the city. 10 Roger Davidson and Gayle Davis's research on prostitution in Edinburgh has shown that during the late 1950s the police restricted the location of prostitution by creating an informal tolerance zone around the Leith docks.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2010

“…Crime, policing, and punishment remain popular areas. Slater examines street prostitution in London between 1918 and 1959, challenging the assumption that numbers of prostitutes declined in the interwar period and examining the pragmatics of policing. Crimes, History and Societies have published an article by Englander, prepared shortly before his death in 1999, which provides valuable insight into the ways in which lines of communication were established between the Jewish community and the police in East London between 1880 and 1920.…”