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2008 4: 73 Crime Media Culture
Maggie O'Neill, Rosie Campbell, Phil Hubbard, Jane Pitcher and Jane Scoular
tolerance
Living with the Other: Street sex work, contingent communities and degrees of

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ARTICLES
Living with the Other: Street sex work, contingent
communities and degrees of tolerance
MAGGIE ONEILL, Loughborough University, UK
ROSIE CAMPBELL, Armistead Street and Portside Liverpool Primary Care
Trust, UK
PHIL HUBBARD, Loughborough University, UK
JANE PITCHER, Independent Researcher, UK
JANE SCOULAR, University of Strathclyde, UK
Abstract
There is substantial literature on how fears of Other populations are prompting the
increased surveillance and regulation of public spaces at the heart of Western cities. Yet,
in contrast to the consumer-oriented spaces of the city centre, there has been relatively
little attention devoted to the quality of the street spaces in residential neighbour-
hoods beyond the central city. In this article, we explore how media representations
of sex workers as an abject and criminalized Other inform the reactions of residents
to street sex work in such communities. Drawing on our work in a number of British
cities we highlight the different degrees of tolerance which residents express towards
street sex work. In light of the Home Office strategy document, A Coordinated Pros-
titution Strategy, this article concludes by advocating participatory action research
and community conferencing as a means of resolving conflicts and assuaging fears of
difference.
Key words
communities; fear of crime; Home Office policy; participatory action research; sex work
INTRODUCTION
Within sociology, critical urban studies and human geography, there is a now well-
established body of literature exploring how fears of otherness trigger processes of
boundary construction, purication and spatial exclusion (Sibley, 1995; Greer and
Jewkes, 2004; Kearon, 2004; Bauman, 2007). While these processes are evident at
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 2008 SAGE Publications, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore
www.sagepublications.com, ISSN 1741-6590, Vol 4(1): 7393 [DOI: 10.1177/1741659007087274]
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 4(1) 74
different spatial scales from the level of the nation state to the micro scale of the body
a key theme in this literature is the idea that urban public spaces are being sanitized
and privatized through strategies of Zero Tolerance policing and crime control which
serve to exclude abject Others (Herbert, 2008). Indeed, in an era when city governors,
retailers and property consortia appear especially keen to attract afuent consumers
to city centre spaces, it is those who are regarded as disturbing the white, middle-
class ambience of city centre spaces who are particularly subject to surveillance and
stigmatization. The young, ethnic minorities, the homeless and those simply hanging
out in the city accordingly nd their presence in public space bought into question
by the state and law, with curfews, police sweeps and ever-present CCTV surveillance
rendering their occupation of city centre space highly problematic (MacLeod, 2002).
The creation of new urban glamour zones at the heart of many Western cities
hence often conceals processes of exclusion which reinforce social hierarchies of class,
gender, race and age. The role of the media in identifying certain groups as a threat
to the integrity of society and hence valued city centre spaces cannot be under-
estimated in such processes, as numerous commentators suggest (Sibley, 1995; Fyfe,
2004). A key idea here is that of a moral panic being created about specic groups,
with discourses of disorder and deviance fuelling efforts by the dominant to exclude
these groups from their proximity (Cohen, 1985). These fears of Otherness are of course
magnied in the context of the city, which itself is often depicted as a crime-ridden and
unpredictable environment. As such, the media play a key role in shaping our daily
encounter with those who are unknown, leading us to view certain types as a poten-
tial threat to the integrity of our bodily selves (Herbert, 2007). Moreover, because
cities can indeed be dangerous places, efforts to exclude Others from these spaces
are bequeathed with commonsensical values. Certain media products may therefore
be highly signicant in supporting exclusionary urban policies even if, at the same
time, there is also emphasis on the need to create open, accessible and democratic
public spaces.
In this article, we will explore the way that the dominant media representation of
one particular group female sex workers justies law and order strategies designed
to exclude them from particular spaces. While previous literature has highlighted the
increasing exclusion of sex workers from city centre spaces (see Papayanis, 2000), in
this article we want instead to focus on the tendency for the state and law to depict
sex work as out of place in residential neighbourhoods. As we note, the current
tendency to depict sex work as anti-social (and hence antithetical to the cultivation
of community space) is highly signicant in such environments, and often fuels ex-
clusionary actions. Our subsequent analysis of relations between sex workers and
residents in particular communities shows, however, that these myths do not reect the
variety of experiences reported in areas of sex working in Britain, with different degrees
of toleration suggesting that the co-existence of sex work and residential living is by
no means impossible. We hence begin by questioning the dominant representations
of sex work which seem to present an unanswerable case for the exclusion of sex work
from the streets.
ONEILL ET AL. LIVING WITH THE OTHER 75
STREET SEX WORK: MYTHS AND IMAGES
Histories of female sex work suggest it is only in the Modern period that the prostitute
has been subject to intensive forms of legal control, being rst identied as a social
problem (as opposed to a moral aberration) in the 19th century. Yet the apparatus of
social control employed to discipline the prostitute subsequently has not unfolded in
any incremental or linear fashion. Rather, it is the case that noisy periods of intense
regulation and law-making have been followed by periods of relative stability. In part,
it has been suggested that this periodicity is connected to the emergence of media
stories implicating prostitutes in specic outbreaks of deviance, disease or deprivation.
Legislation intended to deal with the problem of prostitution has accordingly been
read as reactive to media and public outcry about the prevalence and/or visibility of
prostitution in a particular society (Lowman, 2000; Self, 2003). Consequently, histories
of prostitution frequently expose the discourses that have gured the prostitute in
specic epochs, noting the prevalence of specic myths about disease, crime and victim-
hood that have triggered moral panics (Walkowitz, 1980; Corbin, 1987, 1990).
Developing this logic, we would argue that contemporary legal responses to sex
work need to be understood in relation to at least three dominant myths. The rst,
which arguably originated in the 1980s, is the understanding that prostitutes are a
key vector in the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). In some con-
texts (most notably the global south) this is manifest in concerns about HIV infection;
in the urban west there is arguably more concern about the role of prostitution in the
burgeoning STI rates among the heterosexual population (Kilvington et al., 2001).
The fact that sex workers tend to be well informed on matters of sexual health, and
illustrate relatively low rates of STI infection (Ward et al., 2004), has not dispelled the
stereotype of the sex worker as a health risk, with media representations continuing
to depict the sex worker and not her client as performing forms of risky sex.
A second myth, which connects with the rst in a number of ways, is that prostitu-
tion is a form of violence which inevitably inicts psychological and physical damage
on sex workers. Partly originating in radical feminist scholarship, the idea that prostitu-
tion is indistinguishable from rape as a form of sexual violence has become a powerful
discourse informing the reform of prostitution law throughout the west (Kantola and
Squires, 2004). What is clear from the research literature is that violence against
sex workers is endemic. Yet as Lowman (2000) argues the current system of quasi-
criminalization helps to perpetuate violence against prostitutes, making prostitution
one of the most dangerous forms of work. Lowman thus identies a discourse of
disposal (p. 18) that has formed an important part of the ideological context in which
male violence against women is played out. A woman working the street is particularly
vulnerable to predatory misogynist violence, and all the more so in a milieu in which
she runs the risk of criminal prosecution.
The conation of prostitution and trafcking is also highly signicant in this dis-
course. Berman (2003), for example, suggests the media repeatedly position sex
workers in the European Union as victims of a new white slave trade and a key part of
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 4(1) 76
this discourse is the description of young, innocent, white east European girls, tricked,
kidnapped and forced into prostitution:
From Nicoleta, 17, a beautiful Moldovan student to Daniela, a Czech 18-year-old
student and beauty contestant to Mia, a 14-year-old Hungarian girl . . . in a skinny
jumper and miniskirt, media accounts detail in emotive, graphic and titillating
language crimes of trickery, kidnapping, physical and sexual violence and forced
prostitution perpetrated against young, white women as they clandestinely and
illegally cross state borders. (p. 39)
Media accounts accordingly recount how criminal gangs lure or kidnap tens of
thousands of young women from Eastern Europe while the emphasis on the youth
of trafcked women further reinforces this image of innocent passivity (Doezema,
2001). As in the white slavery narratives that abounded in earlier times, an emphasis
on violence serves to underscore the complete victimization of the woman: the more
violence, the more helpless and truly victim she is understood to be. OConnell-Davidson
(2006) adds to the debate by exploring the ways trafcking is framed as a problem
involving criminal networks and sex slaves. She argues that this obscures the relation
between migration and trafcking, leading to a policy emphasis on sex slaves and
VoTs [victims of trafcking] that limits the states obligations towards them (p. 20).
A third media discourse of particular relevance in the context of the UK is the
identication of sex work as a form of antisocial behaviour. A number of elements of
this representation can be identied. On one hand, the act of selling sex is one that
is represented in the media as uncivil, with both sex workers and their clients seen
as morally degenerate because of their willingness to reduce sex to a commercial
exchange. On the other, street soliciting and kerb crawling are seen to be connected
to a series of tangible nuisances such as noise, litter, discarded condoms, and the per-
formance of public sex acts which cause distress to local people, particularly when they
occur night after night. The widespread use of anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs)
served on sex workers to ban them from working in particular areas is indicative that
prostitution is now regularly identied as a form of behaviour likely to cause haras-
sment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household (Cusick
and Berney, 2005). Likewise, the Home Ofces tacit support for community Street
Watch campaigns designed to exclude prostitutes from particular communities makes
an explicit connection between prostitution, persistent nuisance and criminality (Home
Ofce, 2004; Sagar, 2005).
Despite being hegemonic, the discourses outlined previously have met various sites
and spaces of resistance, being contested by sex work unions such as the International
Union of Sex Workers and the UK National Network of Sex Work projects, the English
Collective of Prostitutes, academic research across a range of disciplines, and some
policy makers. Yet counter-discourses which identify prostitution as a legitimate form
of work have become completely excluded within policy debates (Outshoorn, 2004).
This is certainly apparent in the Home Ofces Coordinated Prostitution Strategy (2006),
which has been acclaimed as the most important policy statement on sex work in
England and Wales since the deliberations of the Wolfenden Committee were published
ONEILL ET AL. LIVING WITH THE OTHER 77
in 1957. While the headlines generated by this report suggested its recommendations
represented a seismic shift in prostitution policy, this downplays the governments
continuing advocacy of abolitionism, which attempts to limit certain undesirable ef-
fects of prostitution while maintaining low levels of criminalisation (Matthews and
ONeill, 2003: xvii). However, abolitionism takes a number of forms, with its latest UK
manifestation being shaped by the conicting demands made by communities, the
police and the statutory agencies offering services and support to sex workers. Ignoring
calls to conceptualize prostitution as legitimate employment, the Home Ofce is hence
recommending increasingly repressive policing of street soliciting and kerb crawling
combined with the improved provision of exit routes (Cusick and Berney, 2005; Brooks-
Gordon, 2006; Scoular and ONeill, 2007). The recent Criminal Justice and Immigration
Bill (2007) introduces a new prostitution referral order to promote rehabilitation and
also removes the term common prostitute from Section 1 of the Street Offences Act
1959 (Home Ofce, 2007: 3).
This policy shift underlines the hegemonic discourse of prostitution in the UK which
imagines sex workers as inevitably subject to violence or abuse, and hence in need
of support (Phoenix and Oerton, 2005; Melrose, 2006; Scoular and ONeill, 2007).
At the same time, it acknowledges that street prostitution is unacceptable in civilized
societies, stressing we fail our communities if we simply accept the existence of street
prostitution (Home Ofce, 2006: 13). The implication here is not merely that street
sex work is undesirable in and of itself, but that it is antithetical to the cultivation
of cohesive communities; interestingly the same policy document suggests that off-
street working may be increasingly tolerated, at least in situations where one or two
women work alone in discrete ats.
Critics have argued that in attempting to deliver safer communities by reducing
both the demand for and supply of street prostitution, the Home Ofce is developing
a moral authoritarianism rooted in the 19th century (Phoenix and Oerton, 2005),
criminalizing and responsibilizing the women involved but neglecting the problems
that lead to routes in (Melrose, 2006). Particularly problematic is the idea that sex
workers abnegate their rights to support if they fail to take up the opportunities to exit
prostitution: in short, if they choose to remain street prostitutes they become awed
citizens in the eyes of the state and the law, and take on the mantle of criminalization
(Scoular and ONeill, 2007). The idea that some sex workers may also be residents in the
neighbourhoods where they work is hence discounted, as the differentiation of local
residents/non-local prostitutes reinforces self/Other distinctions (Hubbard, 1998).
Contemporary UK policy can therefore be characterized as essentially exclusionary
given it implies that street-working women need to exit prostitution or face repressive
policing. In this context, we argue for a renewed research agenda focused upon a
politics of inclusion (ONeill, 2001) to counter this moral authoritarianism (Pitcher
et al., 2006a; Scoular and ONeill, 2007). In the remainder of this article, we focus on
the way relations between residents and community play out in a number of British
cities with the intention of countering the media myth that sex work is always contrary
to the cultivation of cohesive communities.
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 4(1) 78
STREET SEX WORK AND COMMUNITY RESPONSES
Dominant media discourses in the UK and elsewhere repeatedly suggest street pros-
titution is by its very nature harmful to local neighbourhoods, signicantly limiting
residents access to street spaces at particular times (especially at night). In recent
years, much attention has hence been devoted to residents campaigns to remove pros-
titution from their streets through street patrols or pickets (Hubbard, 1998; Lowman,
2000; Sagar, 2005). Often explicitly supported by the local press, such interventions
sometimes simply displace sex work from one locale to another, creating new anxieties
and conicts (Hubbard and Sanders, 2003). This is rarely noted by the press; nor is the
exclusionary nature of these protests which rarely involve a representative cross-section
of the community. Indeed, vociferous campaigns of opposition to street prostitution are
often led by sections of the community who have a moral objection to sex work, and
do not always enjoy the support of all residents. However, quieter voices are often lost
in debates about sex work, meaning those more tolerant or accepting of street pros-
titution have their opinions subsumed.
Nonetheless, widely mediated community campaigns of opposition are not un-
provoked, with the high degree of antipathy expressed towards sex work in some
areas reecting real and persistent concerns (Salt, 1987; ONeill and Campbell, 2002,
2006; Pitcher et al., 2006a). Justifying their campaigns, protestors often stress that
they are concerned about the visibility of sex work on the street, declaring it undermines
the family character of the neighbourhood. Specic concerns may also be voiced
about children witnessing street sex work and sometimes non-sex working women
and young people feel intimidated in streets where sex workers solicit (Hubbard,
1998; ONeill and Campbell, 2002). Further, the few residents surveys that have been
carried out in areas affected by street sex work have suggested that littering, noise
and increased trafc can be real and are signicant concerns in and of themselves
(Benson and Matthews, 1995; Campbell et al., 1996). Local businesses may also com-
plain about the use of loading areas or back alleys for sexual transactions (Hubbard
and Sanders, 2003; Pitcher et al., 2006a). Individual sex workers may behave in ways
that residents regard as offensive, particularly if they are under the inuence of drink or
drugs. More common (but under-reported) is the anti-social behaviour of pimps, who
may be involved in very serious offences such as abduction, rape, procurement, sexual
exploitation of children, grievous bodily harm, false imprisonment, supplying drugs to
minors and witness intimidation (ONeill and Campbell, 2002). Contrary to popular
belief, however, not all women working on the street have pimps (although they
may be supporting partners).
The Home Ofce (2004) concludes that street sex work in residential areas creates
problems of noise and disturbance at night, repeated kerb crawling trafc, attempted
soliciting of non-sex working women, littering, drug dealing and the attraction of
criminal elements to the area. Additionally, the Home Ofce suggests sex work con-
tributes to a general degeneration of an area, creating an intimidating atmosphere and
negatively impacting on house prices, the viability of local businesses and insurance
premiums. However, it is difcult to be precise about the impacts of prostitution given
ONEILL ET AL. LIVING WITH THE OTHER 79
that issues of cause and effect are not easily distinguished when considering the effects
of street soliciting on house prices, crime rates or drug dealing. However, in some
instances, night time noise, littering and discarded drug paraphernalia may be directly
attributable to sex workers and their clients, reminding residents that they are living in
an area where sex is transacted (even if they are not directly confronted with it).
It is hence impossible to be precise about the extent and magnitude of the problems
created by street sex work, and much clearly rests on local contingencies (such as where
clients and workers originate, how prostitution is policed and the social characteristics
of local residents). Nonetheless, it is clear that residents concerns about the noise and
nuisance of kerb crawling, discarded condoms, litter and drug paraphernalia cannot be
easily divorced from their anxieties about the signals this sends out about the general
reputation, propriety and cohesiveness of their neighbourhood (Hubbard, 1998). Such
incivilities and nuisances are experienced as contributing to a general ambience of
criminality, signifying to people that an area is vulnerable to crime. Given the pervasive
idea that low-level anti-social behaviour can be the precursor to more serious crimes
(as in Wilson and Kellings (1997) broken windows thesis), community anxieties about
sex work are perhaps not hard to understand. Yet not all communities have responded
to these issues in the same way, with some communities appearing more tolerant
and attempting to accommodate sex work by militating against its negative con-
sequences rather than displacing it elsewhere (Campbell and Hancock, 1998; ONeill
and Campbell, 2002, 2006; Pitcher et al., 2006a, 2006b). Street sex work tends to be
found in relatively deprived neighbourhoods (Hubbard, 1998), but it is simply not the
case that all residents blame sex workers for local deprivation and disorder.
UNDERSTANDING TOLERANCE AND INTOLERANCE
In our study we set out to consider whether residential streets can serve as shared
spaces where residents and sex workers can coexist by studying six residential neigh-
bourhoods in England and Wales where sex work occurs (Pitcher et al., 2006a: viii).
Referred to here as Southside, Eastside, Central, Central South, Westside and Riverside,
these six areas shared certain characteristics of deprivation, yet were diverse in their
patterns of home ownership, ethnicity and, most signicantly, the number of street
sex workers typically found working on a given night. Interviewing 69 residents and
31 agency workers in these communities, together with 12 outreach workers and 36
women sex workers, we found that dominant community responses to sex work in
the six areas ranged from sympathy and engagement with working women, to action
to displace them from local streets, concluding that these responses could be situated
along a continuum of no tolerance, through levels of ambivalence to higher levels
of tolerance and sympathy (Pitcher et al., 2006a). Further, we found a multiplicity of
views within communities, with some individuals dissenting from the dominant local
view or policy response to articulate higher degrees of tolerance. These ndings are
also reected in some of our previous research, wherein dominant community voices
expressing antipathy towards sex workers often obscure a range of more conciliatory
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 4(1) 80
views (Campbell, 1996; Hubbard, 1999; Aris and Pitcher, 2004; ONeill and Campbell,
2002, 2006).
Hence, it is important to dene what we mean by community as there is a tendency,
evident in Home Ofce documents, to use the term in a homogeneous fashion that
erases difference and complexity. The concept of community is usually dened through
notions of shared territory, shared identities and shared social interests (Williams,
1984). However, commentators including Albrow (1997), Amin (1997), Sandercock
(2003) and Ziller (2004) have illustrated that community is marked by uidity, creating
what Sandercock (2003: 96) terms communities without community, each marked by
multiple and hybrid afliations of varying geographical reach. Further, in the wake of
globalization, diasporic communities are the norm rather than the exception, with the
adoption of a cosmopolitan outlook apparently widespread. Communities are thus
increasingly unbound, and subject to what Massey (1993) has termed a progressive
politics of place, wherein afnities are relational and often stretched out rather than
place based.
This view implies that traditional conceptions of solid local communities based on
class-based solidarity are no longer relevant given the impacts of labour restructuring,
reexive individualization, globalization, and what Castles (2003) calls the asylum-
migration nexus. Yet Beck (1998) suggests this litany of lost community is too retro-
gressive and fails to give an adequate account of the present. Indeed, he states that the
withering away of traditional (class-based) forms of solidarity does not issue in a void
rather, niches of activity and identity are allowing for a new mode of conducting and
arranging life (p. 35). For Beck the decline of traditional solidarities requires we pay
attention to new sources of (consumer-based) identity and contingent communities,
as community becomes less and less tied to local place (p. 33). Parekh (2000: 27) also
writes about post-migration communities and minority cultures as contingent
constantly changing and rewriting themselves through fusing their traditions of
origin . . . with elements of the majority culture.
The emergence of liquid forms of community consequently demands new con-
ceptions of what Bauman (1995, 2007) calls forms of togetherness. For Bauman
the paradox of the contemporary world is that community is increasingly sought after
even though peoples relations are increasingly fragmented and eeting. Togetherness
has become episodic whether in the realms of personal relationships, work or play
and so contemporary communities become more contingent. Yet time and space
continue to have a crucial bearing on how togetherness is experienced, with new
spaces emerging where new forms of sociality and conviviality can be felt (no matter
how eetingly see Latham, 2003). Bauman thus distinguishes between a variety of
forms of togetherness: mobile togetherness (alongside one another in busy streets
or squares); stationary togetherness (in the waiting room, a conglomeration of stra-
ngers shares a limited space); temporal togetherness at a workplace; the manifest
togetherness of a crowd (e.g. at a club or football stadium), and the postulated to-
getherness of the internet (Bauman, 1995: 449).
In relation to understandings of contingent communities, it is nonetheless clear
that the neighbourhood may remain important in cultivating and reproducing various
ONEILL ET AL. LIVING WITH THE OTHER 81
forms of togetherness. Private and (especially) public places still remain a key locus for
forms of togetherness to be cultivated and rened, with streets, parks and markets
allowing for the emergence of temporal, mobile and stationary togetherness. Bianchini
and Ghilardi (2004: 238) accordingly discuss the concept of neighbourhood culture,
stating that neighbourhoods are understood to be the result of collective work re-
ecting the processes of appropriation and production of social and cultural space
by the groups of which they are made up. Yet this process can be highly contested,
while neighbourhood spaces allow some to access forms of togetherness, they often
exclude Others on the basis that their presence transgresses expectations of appro-
priate appearance or conduct. This tendency for public space to allow for some forms
of diversity at the expense of others is a fundamental contradiction of public space. In
short, to work as community spaces, it appears that certain rules of engagement need
to be agreed and subscribed to, necessarily excluding certain members of the com-
munity who do not conform or are viewed as out of place.
Sex workers are of course members of neighbourhoods, though occupational
mobility means they frequently do not live in the neighbourhoods they work in (Sanders,
2004). However, in one of our case study areas, a high proportion working in the
area also lived there. Inevitably, women contribute to the local economy and may be
welcomed by publicans, caf owners and shopkeepers. Their social relationships with
others in the neighbourhood are often very strong. In our study, we asked residents and
sex workers alike whether they considered sex workers to be part of the community
(Pitcher et al., 2006a). Being part of the community for sex workers as was the case
for other residents was described in terms of living in the area, being part of the
networks of schools and shops, taking part in community activities and community
living and having friends locally (Pitcher et al., 2006a: 17). For example, some women
interviewed talked about their relationships with other residents and participation in
local activities:
I used to do a lot . . . I used to help with the kids in the youth clubs and things
like that. (Eastside sex worker)
I have friends here, I think I am part of the community. (Southside sex worker)
Conversely, some sex workers did not perceive themselves to be part of the community:
I didnt feel part of anything, I was just there (Pitcher et al., 2006: 17). For one woman,
being part of the community would mean not being a prostitute, and not being a
drug addict (Pitcher et al., 2006: 17), reecting her experiences of stigmatization. As
such, the Home Ofces insistence that communities (as single entities) need to reclaim
neighbourhoods from street sex workers appears somewhat simplistic. However,
given that sex work is depicted as inherently anti-social, it is not particularly surprising;
sex workers view-points are rarely heard in community affairs.
Sex workers are, in effect, displaced and excluded from the reconstruction and
re-imagining of urban spaces by an idealized white middle class hegemonic notion
of urbanity (Hall and Hubbard, 1998: 110). Residents, on the other hand, are more
likely to be consulted in plans to redesign and regenerate urban spaces, with more
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 4(1) 82
highly educated or articulate residents (including afuent gentriers in some con-
texts) more likely to have their point of view taken on board by policy makers. For
example, in Stoke-on-Trent in 1999, a key task of the city councils original Single
Regeneration Bid was to improve street lighting and reduce the levels of prostitution
and street crime (ONeill et al., 2000, p. 239). Sex workers were explicitly identied
as not belonging to community, needing to be removed for regeneration to occur.
This was reinforced by talk in the local press of the soaring vice epidemic in the capital
of vice and on the street of shame. However, ONeill et al. (2000) suggested that
Stokes sex workers wanted a stake in their local communities, and should be included
in regeneration processes, contrary to the exclusion promoted by some sections of the
mass media.
In our study of six neighbourhoods, co-existence appeared greatest where
responses to prostitution had been developed between a range of partners, including
sex worker support projects, and where alternatives to enforcement, such as court
diversion schemes, were present (Pitcher et al., 2006a). Overall, we found the scope for
improving relations between residents and sex workers was considerable, particularly
through mediation and awareness raising. Within the context of debates surrounding
contingent communities, in the next section of this article we explore the scope for
moving beyond binaries by promoting community mediation between sex workers and
residents, suggesting that this approach could be a key strand in the Home Ofces
policy responses to street sex work. While such approaches may not erase the distinc-
tion between sex worker and resident, we argue they might at least promote a form of
conviviality whereby sex workers are not excluded from neighbourhood spaces but are
brought within the boundaries of contingent communities.
BEYOND BOUNDARIES: SEX WORK, COMMUNITIES
AND (CREATIVE) CONSULTATION
Greer and Jewkes (2004: 110) have written of the need to engage with the everyday
lives of the criminalized Other, stating that media representations serve as one of the
primary sites of social inclusion and exclusion in late modernity. They further argue
that such representations are constructed and consumed to allow readers/viewers/
listeners to sidestep reality and establish the Otherness of those who deviate from their
own normality.
Both theoretically and practically, one important means of challenging this hege-
mony is by producing knowledge that illustrates the complexity of street sex markets
and their impact upon neighbourhoods through the use of participatory action
research (PAR). Methodologically, PAR is based upon the principles of inclusion, par-
ticipation, valuing all local voices (not just the loudest) and facilitating sustainable
outcomes and interventions. A phenomenological approach, linked also to cultural
criminology, the research process fosters safe spaces for dialogue and reection,
and helps to counter stereotypes; because community members are included as co-
researchers, any recommendations emerging from the research process are rooted in
ONEILL ET AL. LIVING WITH THE OTHER 83
stakeholder inclusion (ONeill, 2007). A wealth of studies suggests PAR can overcome
the problems associated with those non-participatory research models which have
difculty engaging hard to reach groups and that make recommendations neither
sup-ported nor endorsed by the communities they are intended to benet. Creative
con-sultation using arts and performance based methods is also an important aspect
of PAR, emphasizing that the arts can have a vital role in processes of regeneration by
creating safe spaces for communication (ONeill, 2001; ONeill and Campbell, 2002;
ONeill et al., 2003).
One example of PAR is provided by ONeill and Campbell (2002), who were com-
missioned by Walsall South Health Action Zone to develop partnership responses to
street-based sex work. Walsall South Health Action Zone commissioned this research
having identied street prostitution as a signicant issue for residents in terms of
well-being and community safety. The purpose of the research was to assess present
policy, produce a baseline of information, consult all those involved and affected by
prostitution, produce a strategic action plan, consider the possibility of safety zones
and improve community safety. The researchers trained a group of community co-
researchers who helped to conduct focus groups and observations, and completed
an environmental mapping of street-based sex markets. An arts worker, based at
Walsall Youth Arts, led 21 arts-based creative consultation workshops supported by
the researchers (see Figures 1 and 2).
FIGURE 1
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 4(1) 84
Women working on the streets need to be aware of safety issues to protect them-
selves and save their lives (SafetySoapbox Gallery www.safetysopbox.co.uk).
One outcome of the consultation research was to show that collaboration (with local
committees, agencies, residents, as well as sex workers) produces rich understanding
as well as social texts useful to the wider community (including local and national
policy makers). Together, the research team were able to document the complexity of
the issues and developed a multi-layered package of responses (some of which were
actioned). Key ndings included:
high levels of violence against women working on the street;
under-reporting of violence and assaults to the police;
complex routes into and feelings about work;
the impact on residents was based along a continuum of some tolerance and
concern for women working on the street (e.g. dont blame the women, look
at the men) to no tolerance and anger (I am angry, I feel we are the victims).
Residents documented fear of going out after dark, harassment from kerb
crawlers (johns), residents approached for business, fear of pimps (and violence),
perceived higher levels of crime, concerns about routes into prostitution and the
safety of those involved and dissatisfaction with responses from the authorities.
FIGURE 2
ONEILL ET AL. LIVING WITH THE OTHER 85
Living in the red light area is a nightmare my young children have to witness
soliciting and sexual acts. I want it off my doorstep (SafetySoapbox Gallery
www.safetysopbox.co.uk).
The process of PAR, in this case, ultimately allowed residents to understand there were
no simple solutions to removing prostitution from street spaces, with a view emerging
that it should instead be properly managed. Most were in favour of the setting up
of a safety zone away from their homes and local businesses. They concluded that
the traditional punitive ways of dealing with street prostitution had not worked, with
residents action groups considered of limited effectiveness. They perceived a safety
zone initiative as a sensible way of containing the situation to the benet of both
residents and sex workers. Other recommendations included a focus on the safety of
sex workers, providing more help for drug users, a stronger focus on deterring men
who pay for sex and a sustained programme for dealing with the pimps. Emphasis
was also placed on the need for better education, harm prevention or reduction initia-
tives, and a need for negative media publicity about their area to be reversed. Many
residents also wanted a change in the law as a way to control prostitution, suggesting
the licensing of brothels may lead to a diminution of street prostitution.
Residents who took part in the research in Walsall also wanted a multi-agency forum
developed to discuss these issues, including a women (sex workers) sub-group as well
as a resident sub-group. The latter recommendation was not actioned and, indeed,
was resisted by the local Prostitution Action Forum (PAF) led by police. Signicantly,
however, residents participating in the research recommended the continued use of
PAR as a means of giving women and young people a voice and, unhappy with the
responses to the research by the relevant authorities, produced a website where the
report, recommendations and images were logged (see www.safetysoapbox.com).
Additionally, a leaet was developed to publicize ndings and stress that participants
would continue to put pressure on the authorities to recognize the needs of residents,
sex workers and sex worker residents.
Our ve-city study underlined the conclusions drawn in the Walsall study given that
we found there was considerable scope for co-existence to be promoted through con-
sultation processes integrated into a multi-stakeholder response to street-based sex
work (Pitcher et al., 2006a). Indeed, we found that co-existence was greatest where
consultation across a wide range of partners (including sex worker support projects)
had led to integrated responses such as mediation and alternatives to enforcement
such as court diversion. In the Eastside and Central sites, co-existence was greatest,
reecting both the extent to which sex workers lived as well as worked in the area
and were perceived as community members; the degree of communication between
residents and sex workers; and the relative visibility of sex workers and their clients
(Pitcher et al., 2006a: viii). Highly signicant here were good lines of communication
between sex worker support projects and local residents.
In this regard, we discovered sex work projects can play an important role in
mediating between sex workers and local communities, particularly when they have
the co-operation of local police and other agencies (Hester and Westmarland, 2004;
Pitcher, 2006). For example, they can pass on residents concerns to working women
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 4(1) 86
about locations of soliciting (e.g. outside schools or places of worship) and help to
change views of community members about sex-working women. Signicantly, one
trend in our study areas was the serving of anti-social behaviour orders on working
women, which caused women enormous difculties and compromised their safety.
While some residents supported such forms of enforcement, outreach workers and
sex work projects opposed such orders (sometimes successfully), explaining they pre-
vented women from gaining support and exit advice, and hence offered little long-
term solution to the conicts created by sex work. Projects were also instrumental
in informing and educating local agencies about the range of problems faced by sex
workers, as well as ensuring the women themselves were aware of services available
and encouraging them to attend as appropriate. By attending community meetings and
liaison meetings (i.e. involving agencies as well as residents), projects can ensure that
the views of their service users are taken into account and gradually build awareness
so that the women are not seen as Others. Gradually, hostility may give way a greater
understanding of the womens situation and even to increased tolerance.
One major example of good practice we encountered was a sex worker support
project which, through community mediation, had led to a change in attitudes in the
locality (including increased understanding of the issues affecting the women and
why they are working, an understanding of the need for outreach work, and greater
tolerance of working women if not kerb crawlers). Any resurgence of problems was
dealt with quickly and effectively, with the project communicating community concerns
to working women (to which they responded, for example, by moving their location or
times of working); and also raising awareness in meetings with community members.
In some cases, local residents even became involved in project outreach and other
voluntary activities. With a more sympathetic and supportive response from residents,
some of the women themselves felt able to attend meetings, thus facilitating their
participation in a community whose boundaries are always shifting.
TOWARDS POLITICS OF INCLUSION: CREATING
INCLUSIVE CITIZENSHIP
Our individual and collaborative research suggests that where local communities,
agencies, projects and sex workers work closely together, fewer community complaints
are apparent (see Pitcher and Scoular, 2006). While recent strategy documents
acknowledge the need to consult sex workers on some issues for example, the
Home Ofce (2006: 15) refers to the involvement of those involved in prostitution
. . . in the development of local services their participation does not appear to extend
to dialogue with communities, nor do they include the wealth of ethnographic and
qualitative research with sex workers and sex worker support projects. Rather than
recognizing the agency of sex workers, national policy has, as discussed earlier, tended
to demonize them as sources of public disorder (Brooks-Gordon, 2006). This runs
counter to an approach based upon politics of inclusion and is a central contradiction
in the Home Ofce co-ordinated strategy.
ONEILL ET AL. LIVING WITH THE OTHER 87
As such, current Home Ofce policies prioritize the disruption of street sex work
by tackling supply and demand and accelerating routes out. The Home Ofce (2006)
suggests this can be achieved via local strategic partnerships, especially crime and
disorder reduction partnerships which address community concerns. It is claimed that
the introduction of the neighbourhood policing team by 2008 will foster partner-
ships between local police, local communities and Other partners, identifying local
priorities in terms of crime and anti-social behaviour so that they can be dealt with.
Neighbourhood management pathnders offering a single point of contact for
local residents and businesses to negotiate with providers about service delivery will
take overall responsibility at local level for responding to local needs. Neighbourhood
wardens are also working locally to reduce crime and fear of crime. Finally, the pros-
titution strategy provides a short account of the community justice centre model, which
provides opportunities for community justice practitioners to engage with the local
community and nd out what can be done to tackle anti-social behaviour. The example
provided is of North Liverpool where, in response to dialogue with residents, the police
focused on kerb crawling, arresting and taking men to court on the same day, issuing
nes and disqualifying some from driving. Signs were also erected warning that police
would prosecute kerb-crawlers as a preventative measure.
These measures attempt to address the concerns of locals but offer punitive solu-
tions that can be critiqued from multiple standpoints (not least that they encourage
street working women to be less discriminating in their choice of clients as numbers
of kerb-crawlers decline see Hubbard and Sanders, 2003). As such, the Home Ofce
suggestion most in keeping with anti-exclusionary praxis is community conferencing
bringing together all stakeholders who can make a difference to problems iden-
tied by communities, including communities themselves (Home Ofce, 2006: 17).
Three models of community conferencing are described in the Home Ofce report.
The rst is Community Mediation Services, which cover 60% of the UK. Most offer
neighbour dispute mediation, though some also offer multi party meetings involving
large numbers of people, with mediators recruited from local communities (Crime
Concern, 2005: 30). Second, Community Conferencing Projects are small in number
and short-term funded, staffed by trained sessional workers and community members
and aimed at incidences of crime and disorder. Finally, the Thames Valley Police model
of community problem solving uses police ofcers and non-civilian staff as facilitators
(Crime Concern, 2005: 45) and is based squarely upon principles of restorative justice.
There is limited data on the effectiveness of these models. For the rst two models,
monitoring and evaluation are conducted using satisfaction questionnaires; however,
outcomes such as reduction in crime and disorder are not measured. The Thames Valley
Police model restricts monitoring and evaluation to anecdotal accounts of effectiveness
of community conferencing in reducing crime, fear of crime and the reintegration of
parties (Crime Concern, 2005: 45).
In the Walsall example, ONeill and Campbell (2002) come closest to the model of
a community conference in their research using PAR methods. However, the approach
taken was research driven (not led by the principles of restorative justice). We hence
argue that the approach to community conferencing could be widened beyond the
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 4(1) 88
quite narrow basis of crime and disorder (where there is a clear focus upon restoring
justice after a crime or injury has occurred). In the case of communities affected by
street sex work, there is a need to develop a better understanding of the issues at stake
before looking at what possible outcomes can be recommended to address the issues.
Mapping the issues and conicts might constitute one key activity in this regard,
identifying neighbourhood spaces where soliciting and/or kerb crawling limit the use
of public spaces. Thus, PAR could be a useful model of research to be linked to com-
munity conferencing and community mediation services in order to create safe spaces
for dialogue through understanding via knowledge production.
PAR ts well with the principles of restorative justice, especially as outlined by
Howard Zehr (2002). For Zehr restorative justice is a compass not a map an invitation
for dialogue and exploration (p. 10). Conferencing and dialogue are terms adopted
to counter the neutral language of mediation that infers a level playing eld with
a sharing of responsibilities. For communities affected by street sex work, emotions
can run high and they may have developed a victim status reinforced by media
reporting. Restorative justice seeks to develop an alternative framework for thinking
about crime and justice and has ve key principles: focusing upon the needs of the
victims, communities and offenders; addressing the obligations that result from harms;
using inclusive collaborative processes; involving all those who have a stake in the
situation; and seeking to put right wrongs. These principles are underpinned by respect
for all. Thus, restorative justice is about respect:
If we pursue justice as respect, we will do justice restoratively. If we do not respect
Others, we will not do justice restoratively, no matter how earnestly we adopt the
principles. The value of respect underlies restorative justice principles and must
guide and shape their application. (Zehr, 2002: 36)
Given that PAR is rooted in principles of inclusion, it offers a form of partnership working
based upon respect for Otherness, difference and sustainability. Inclusion involves
working with participants as co-researchers (community members as experts) through
democratic processes and decision making. This involves mutual recognition, through
what Frire (1970) calls dialogic techniques. It uses innovative ways of consulting
and working with local people, for example through arts workshops, forum theatre
methods and stakeholder events. But perhaps most importantly, PAR is a process
directed towards social change with the participants. ONeill and Campbell (2006: 59)
suggest that PAR develops social knowledge that is interventionist in partnership with
communities and, moreover, because it seeks to promote social change, it provides a
testimony to the possibilities for participation in local governance that can shed light
on broader structures, practises and processes.
As researchers and theorists, we are very aware that dominant discourses depict
sex work as a social problem to be rehabilitated, reformed, controlled and excluded.
However, there are also counter-discourses which are produced within specic
communities. The notion that prostitutes are part of communities, have a right to
public space, contribute to the local economy and are part of the local scene are
not uncommon, while the idea that prostitution is legitimate work is an increasingly
ONEILL ET AL. LIVING WITH THE OTHER 89
prominent discourse in some quarters. As such, the rise of sex worker rights, unionization,
advocacy and research that evidences the complexity of womens lived experience not
only challenges the dominant discourses but also creates a space for discussions to
take place around inclusion, citizenship and policy change. Participatory methodo-
logies linked to restorative justice that not only include working womens voices but
respect their experience are, by their very presence in affected communities, helping to
create safe spaces for these issues to be raised and dialogues to take place.
Perhaps the key issue emerging from participatory research is the relational dynamics
between street-based sex workers, residents and the local agencies seeking to manage
street sex work. For instance, in Walsall, participatory action research led to greater
awareness and understanding for residents, bridging the gap between residents and
street sex workers, and creating a platform for new policy and practice in the local
area. In one anonymous locale, we also noted that hostility turned to empathetic
understanding through greater awareness via increased dialogue between projects,
residents and sex workers (Pitcher et al., 2006a). In contrast, where such processes
were lacking, mutual suspicion, antagonism and conicts over public space continued
to characterize areas of street sex work, with increasing anxiety about anti-sociality
triggering repressive measures designed to displace sex workers and thus reduce the
forms of togetherness that might create contingent communities.
In summary, our collaborative work suggests some ways in which distinctions of
local residents/sex worker others might be overcome. Mediation and dialogue is, we
would argue, vital in contemporary circumstances where the voices of sex workers
are rarely acknowledged in policy documents and where media coverage presents
sex workers as a generalized problem category. We argue that it is vitally important
that research seeks to move beyond media stereotypes to consider where the bound-
aries between anti-sociality and community actually lie. While sex workers might be
imagined as a community apart, our research identies them as living and working in
the neighbourhoods we studied. Hence, spaces need to be identied in which they
can experience forms of togetherness with other residents, bringing them within the
boundaries of a contingent community based on respect for difference rather than
social exclusion and erasure.
CONCLUSION
In December 2006, the murders of ve street sex workers in Ipswich bought the issue
of UK prostitution policy to the forefront of policy debates once more. On the surface,
the abduction and murder of these women seemed to validate the Home Ofce argu-
ment that street sex working has no place in an acceptable society given it places
sex workers in danger while causing nuisance and disturbance to local communities.
Yet the research presented here suggests that street prostitution is not always the
intractable social problem that the Home Ofce suggests, with the relations between
workers, residents, clients and police sometimes rendering sex workers less vulner-
able to sexual violence than they might be in off-street locations (Sanders, 2004;
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 4(1) 90
Matthews, 2005). By the same token, it is not always the case that street sex work
causes problems for those who live in areas where soliciting and kerb crawling occurs.
Our argument is that creating a safe space for sex workers in residential neighbour-
hoods helps to reduce the risk of violence, whereas further criminalizing of women
through ASBOs and other measures increases risk.
In this article, we have looked beyond the media stereotypes which depict street
prostitutes as inherently anti-social to outline the possibilities for sex workers and
community residents to come together to effect urban policy that is neither punitive,
moralistic nor biased (Sanders, 2004: 1715). Our suggestion here is that the conicts
arising over the use of residential streets may be resolvable, and that reducing conict
between sex workers and residents may have positive outcomes for both parties.
Indeed, in several of the localities we have explored, mediation between residents and
workers has created safe spaces for dialogue, improving quality of life for residents
while improving working conditions for sex working women.
Histories of prostitution suggest that street sex work tends to be located in eco-
nomically deprived, politically inarticulate and socially marginal areas (Hubbard, 1999).
Such communities are often under stress and occasionally blighted by disorder, in the
UK as elsewhere. Those in such communities should not have to tolerate harassment or
nuisance from prostitutes and their clients. Yet neither should sex workers have to face
abuse or violence from residents. Seeking to address and diffuse conicts over the use
of residential space through restorative justice is hence important for improving both
the life of local residents and the safety and working conditions of prostitute women.
Moving beyond media stereotypes which depict prostitution as Other is vital if sex
work policy is to be supportive rather than simply punitive; diffusing fear of difference,
we suggest, will ultimately lead to more convivial, if not cohesive, neighbourhoods.
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22(4): 46579.
MAGGIE ONEILL, Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy, Loughborough
University, UK. Email: m.oneill@lboro.ac.uk
ROSIE CAMPBELL, Armistead Street and Portside Sex work projects and Chair of the
UK Network of Sex Work Projects, UK
PHIL HUBBARD, Professor Human Geography, Loughborough University, UK
JANE PITCHER, Independent social researcher, UK
JANE SCOULAR, Senior Lecturer, University of Strathclyde, UK