Violent and Nonviolent Crimes Against Sex Workers: The Influence of the Sex Market on Reporting Practices in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Previous research has shown that sex workers experience extremely high rates of victimization but are often reluctant to report their experiences to the police. This article explores how the markets in which sex workers operate in the United Kingdom impact upon the violent and nonviolent crimes they report to a national support organization and their willingness to report victimization to the police. We use a secondary quantitative data analysis of 2,056 crime reports submitted to the U.K. National Ugly Mugs (NUM) scheme between 2012 and 2016. The findings indicate that although violence is the most common crime type reported to NUM, sex workers operating in different markets report varying relative proportions of different types of victimization. We also argue that there is some variation in the level of willingness to share reports with the police across the different sex markets, even when the types of crime, presence of violence, and other variables are taken into account. Our finding that street sex workers are most likely to report victimization directly to the police challenges previously held assumptions that criminalization is the key factor preventing sex workers from engaging with the police.

Are Men Who Pay for Sex Sexist? Masculinity and Client Attitudes Toward Gender Role Equality in Different Prostitution Markets

“…Where clients contact providers matter a great deal. Street sex markets draw more vulnerable sellers and buyers with fewer financial and social resources, and both parties, but especially the workers, are likely to encounter violence in the environment by police or criminals (Connelly, Kamerāde, & Sanders;Deering et al, 2014;Weitzer, 2009). On the other hand, print ads, and more recently, digital communications provide distance in time and space allowing both buyer and seller to gather more information, be more selective and screen out dangerous or undesireable clients and situations (Armstrong, 2014;Scott Cunningham & Kendall, 2011;Monto & Milrod, 2014;Nelson, Hausbeck Korgan, Izzo, & Bessen, 2019;Sanders, 2008aSanders, , 2008b.…”

Disrupting the Boundaries of the Academe: Co-creating Knowledge and Sex Work ‘Academic-activism’

“…This body of research not only exposes sex workers' heightened risk of physical violence -from (a minority of) clients, vigilantes, police officers, controllers, and others (Campbell and Stoops, 2010;Kinnell, 2008) -but also, how sex workers are deterred from reporting victimisation. This may be due to the (perceived) risk of: arrest, the arrest of their co-workers and/or clients, the closure of the premises in which they work, and/or public identification (Boff, 2012;Connelly, Kamerade and Sanders, 2018;Klambauer, 2018). The sex work studies field is thus burgeoning with work that contests the marginalisation and stigmatisation of sex workers.…”

Not collateral damage: Trends in violence and hate crimes experienced by sex workers in the Republic of Ireland

“…This is particularly low when compared to the documented level of reporting to the police for reports from sex workers reporting into the NUM scheme in the UK. Connelly et al (2018) having analysed 2056 reports submitted to NUM between 2011 and 2016 and found that in nine out of ten cases (90%), the sex worker had given anonymous consent to share report data with the police, whereas in only two out of ten cases (20%) gave their full consent (permission to report formally) compared to no more than 1.81% in any of the years examined for UM. Whilst reporting to the police has been consistently low, UM data indicate that reporting levels have not improved since Ireland introduced the 2017 Act.…”