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Being Outside: CONSTRUCTING A RESPONSE TO STREET PROSTITUTION

Chapter Four: THE CONTEXT OF STREET PROSTITUTION

'How long will I keep working? I've stopped thinking about it.... I just started living each day as it comes... I am 23 on Thursday..'
Aberdeen Woman

(Quotations are derived from fieldwork undertaken on behalf of the Group in the four cities by Professor Neil McKeganey, University of Glasgow.)

4.1 Street prostitution is overwhelmingly an urban phenomenon concentrated in the four large Scottish cities. This is for a number of reasons. Cities are where the custom for bought sex is most likely to be found. Cities may be said to have some tradition of prostitution, perhaps reflected in one or more customary 'red light' areas. Within the busyness and anonymity of the city environment soliciting may be carried out in a way which, relatively, has less impact or effect on others round and about.

4.2 Equally, the 'precursors' which can contribute to a woman becoming involved in street prostitution - such as drug use, mental ill health, family breakdown and homelessness - are factors which tend to concentrate in urban areas. This means that the market, the working environment and the people vulnerable to risk of becoming involved, all tend to concentrate in cities. The extent of this is such that women not normally resident within a city will travel to the city to become involved in prostitution rather than do so locally.

'I was in and out of foster homes. I practically brought my sisters up, till I got taken into a home. Once I was taken into a home they got taken into foster care as well and that's why I ended up blaming myself. I've been sexually abused by about eight different people. When I was growing up my uncle sexually abused me for eight years from the age of 2 to 10, and the thing is my parents know about it but because they were alcoholics they just ignored it.' Dundee Woman

4.3 Estimating the Numbers Involved in Street Prostitution

The numbers of women involved in street prostitution in each of the four cities is extremely difficult to quantify. In part this is because the necessary research has not been comprehensively carried out. However, it must also be said that the evident fluctuations in numbers, which sustained observation by operational services in contact with street prostitution reveals, shows a major challenge to any research in this field. The numbers are perpetually changing - and any thorough counting of numbers may quickly fall out of date. Nevertheless more robust estimates than those presently available would greatly assist a strategic and operational response. The moving nature of the total numbers is partly because of the connection with drug misuse, and the movement (latterly, normally upwards) in the quantification of drug users in urban Scotland. It also relates to the fact that a woman's involvement in street prostitution may not be steady and sustained, but may be intermittent and variable in intensity. Numbers involved may also vary according to external factors such as police enforcement and availability of soliciting sites - with numbers involved rising or falling according to the availability of opportunity. Finally, it must be remembered that the total number of women who may from time to time be involved in street prostitution in a city will be very different from those who will be likely to be working the streets on any given night. It may be practical therefore to think in terms of two numbers for each city - those likely to be out on a particular night, and those who are regularly actively involved in street prostitution from whom that number is drawn.

4.4 Despite these numerical problems, estimates can be drawn from each city. The numbers used are those provided by each of the cities themselves. These usually base on the operational experience of services such as the police and designated health and social services which have regular contact with women involved in street prostitution. Some conclusions may also be drawn from data on criminal convictions and criminal justice services, but these require to be interpreted with caution because of variations in policing, prosecution and sentencing practice. Reference may also be made to other data sources, such as caseloads of social work and addiction services locally. Where numerical estimates are made of numbers in each city these are the usual sources of information.

4.5 Aberdeen

'Aye you put yourself down for doing it.. it's just not the right thing to be doing. Everybody else gets a job and we're doing this.'

'If I didn't have a (drug) habit there's no way I would be doing this.' Aberdeen Women

In Aberdeen there are estimated to be 150 women regularly involved in street prostitution of whom 30 - 40 might be expected to be on the streets on an average night. Traditionally, the dock area has been the location where soliciting most frequently has happened, and the role of the city as a sea port, and latterly as the centre for the offshore oil industry, has provided a ready availability of male purchasers. The rapid growth of drug misuse in the North East of Scotland since 1995 has fuelled the numbers of women involved in prostitution. Despite there being evidence of significant cocaine use in the Aberdeen area, women involved in street prostitution predominantly misuse heroin as their main problem drug, in some cases combined with benzodiazepine and/or cocaine. Unusually in the Scottish context, there is evidence of women travelling from other parts of the UK to engage in prostitution in Aberdeen, although this appears to lean towards 'indoor' work in flats rather than street based work. This number includes some women known to travel from Edinburgh, displaced to a more stable environment by the events in the capital (see below). The apparent driver of this process, however, is also a sense of the available wealth of those involved in the oil industry, but interestingly, a frequent place of origin of women coming to the area is the North West and West Midlands of England, which are also associated with the drug supply routes to Aberdeen and its area. This may point to a link between drug supply and pimping, at least with some of the women - a conclusion which reflects the close connections described in Home Office guidance: 'Solutions and Strategies; drug problems and street sex markets' 2004.

4.6 A 'Sex Industry Forum' has been established in Aberdeen, operating within the framework of the city's Community Safety Partnership and including the local authority, Police, health authority and voluntary sector interests. Aberdeen has also developed a 'management area' for street prostitution in the city. This is seen as a pragmatic contribution to community safety - with objectives of containing and reducing the level of incidence of street prostitution, reducing the harm to those involved and helping them to find a way out, while at the same time circumscribing the incidence of soliciting in order to limit the impact on communities more generally. Operationally therefore, the 'management area' is intended to:

• increase the personal safety of the women involved in street prostitution;
• safeguard the safety and well being of other women in the city centre by containing soliciting behaviour within a defined area;
• provide scope for targeting harm reduction and 'exiting' support services on women involved in drug use and prostitution and thereby breaking the cycles of repeated involvement in criminal justice processes.

All agencies involved in the development and operation of the area based approach emphasise that it does not indicate 'toleration' or legitimisation of street prostitution, but constitutes a pragmatic means of pursuing the three objectives. The consensus amongst agencies in the city is that there is an increasing firmness in the non-acceptance of prostitution, with a growing emphasis on finding 'ways out'. Whilst the city council has not adopted a formal position on prostitution generally it seeks to link the street prostitution programme to the city's developing zero tolerance initiatives with regard to male violence.

4.7 The 'management area' is predominantly commercial, adjoining the docks, with few residents, although it does incorporate access roads to adjacent residential areas. Within the area, police discretion is used to not routinely enforce legislation against soliciting. Women who become known to the police as involved in soliciting are invited to participate in a voluntary photographic identity scheme (to assist future identification) and are issued with a card indicating the legal and geographical parameters applicable to the area. The locality operates as a management area for soliciting purposes only and does not include toleration of public sexual behaviour nor of other forms of offending, which are strictly policed. The law regarding soliciting behaviour outwith the 'management area' is strictly enforced. Aberdeen Drugs Action, a voluntary agency which receives health and local authority funding, has operated for a number of years providing outreach work to the women in the area, providing harm reduction services such as condoms and needle exchange, and has now been funded to set up a drop-in facility adjacent to the area. The centre is intended to act both as a locus for the harm reduction services already provided and also a gateway for 'exiting' support through engagement with women and encouragement towards rehabilitative involvement.

4.8 A police liaison officer is dedicated on a part time basis to establish links with women using the area, to ensure its safe and appropriate use. This officer also liaises with the drop-in centre to ensure good operational links with the other services working in the area.

4.9 Within Aberdeen, perspectives on the area initiative to date might be summarised as follows.

• The area is working to provide a safer environment for women involved in street prostitution, and the liaison relationship with the police and other relevant services is developing positively.
• The area also ensures that enforcement against unwanted consequences of soliciting in other parts of the city centre can be better focused.
• The development of the area has also contributed to the evolution of clearer and firmer policies and practice towards reducing the prevalence of prostitution, based on non-acceptance of the phenomenon.
• Public consultations which have taken place on community safety strategies in the city have generally produced a measured and constructive response to the area based approach.

Less positively, the following factors have been identified:

• Resource constraints on all agencies involved have reduced the effectiveness of the area below its potential. Levels of police time for liaison work and patrolling in the interests of safeguarding of women and enforcement against other criminality are less than they would wish. Safety enhancement features such as improved lighting and C.C.T.V. coverage have not been introduced as wished. The location of the drop-in centre, outwith the 'management area', and relatively infrequent opening hours, are making it difficult to establish the required level of engagement with all women using the area, and there is a shortage of health and social service interventions which can assist with addiction rehabilitation - resulting in unhelpful waiting periods.
• Pressures are building on the viability of the current area location, partly because of resistance from some businesses within its boundaries, as a result of the impact on their employees, and from neighbouring residents who require to pass through the area. In addition there are regeneration proposals which are likely to increase the prevalence of residential developments within the area itself. For these reasons it is anticipated that the future of the area will be subject to continuing pressures for review.

4.10 Dundee

In Dundee there are estimated to be 10 to 15 women sometimes involved in street prostitution of whom only 3 to 4 might be expected to be on the streets on an average night. Traditionally, the dock area has been the location where soliciting most frequently happened. The prevalence level of drug misuse in Dundee might lead to an expectation that numbers of women involved in prostitution might be higher than this. However, information from Tayside Police has indicated that numbers of women involved in street prostitution has steeply declined over a 20-year period to the current low numbers. Previous attempts by women from England to establish prostitution activity from flats, perhaps connected to drug distribution, as in Aberdeen, were disrupted by police activity and have not recurred. The limited amount of street based soliciting which does now occur has been confined to a small area of the city centre and appeared to involve a very small number of women. This area has been firmly policed in response to complaints as they occur, usually leading to referral for prosecution. The apparent small numbers mean that there has been felt to be no need to develop specific policy or operational responses to street prostitution in Dundee.

4.11 This situation in Dundee raises, for the Group, some tantalising questions. The situation in Dundee with regard to level of drug misuse, especially injected opiate use, is no less concerning than in the other large Scottish cities, and yet it seems to be the case that women drug users in that city turn less to street based prostitution for income to support their habit (and the drug habit of partners) than do women in a similar position in the other three cities. A number of possible explanations are available for this difference:

• Prompt police intervention to disrupt the possible establishment of a pattern of street based soliciting including regular patrolling and use of C.C.T.V;
• Use of bail conditions in the event of arrest to prevent early recurrence of the offending, and arrest referral and court sentences as a means to try to tackle concurrent addiction problems in the event of conviction are also seen as necessary to the strategy. (Parallel strategies to tackle retail crime are in place to close down this alternative source of illegal funding for drug misuse.);
• Off-street prostitution may be more characteristic of the current position in Dundee;
• Anecdotally there has been some experience of women travelling from Dundee to both Aberdeen and Edinburgh to work in prostitution - and also men going from Dundee to the other cities to purchase sex. This, if accurate, may be indicative of some displacement as a result of effectiveness in police activity making Dundee an unattractive location for prostitution activity.

4.12 Interestingly, in July 2004, following the gathering of the above perceptions of the situation in Dundee a number of incidents occurred with increased levels of complaints to police at the quantity and the overt nature of soliciting and sexual behaviour occurring in an area of Dundee where street prostitution was previously less apparent and did not attract high levels of complaints. This appeared to have happened because of road re-alignment making the previously favoured location less accessible. The police have applied a strict enforcement approach to deal with this rise in complaints, in line with the strategy outlined above. This occurrence is interesting both because of its illustration of the effect of redevelopment on patterns of soliciting but also because it indicates the high level of community reaction which can be prompted by the relocation of even what is, by all accounts, a very low level of street prostitution activity.

4.13 Edinburgh

'Really I just feel dead. I go home and black it out.' Edinburgh Woman

In Edinburgh there are estimated to be around 100 women sometimes involved in street prostitution of whom some 40 to 60 might be expected to be on the streets on an average night. In recent years the main locus of street based prostitution has been the Leith area. This being the dock area and, historically, an area of relative economic deprivation probably contributed to this. The significant transformations to Leith in recent years - changing from commercial to residential as industries declined, and ex-industrial areas converted to residential, and as the economic character changed to relatively affluent - placed pressures on the established pattern. In response to these pressures the police sought to 'shepherd' street prostitution into what has been termed a 'zone of discretionary prosecution'. Within this zone women involved in soliciting for prostitution would normally not be referred to the Procurator Fiscal in respect of alleged soliciting behaviour, although enforcement of other potential offences would be as normal. The area identified was one with less residential density and with a history of use by women for soliciting. This arrangement lasted for some 15 years until 2001. Within this area SCOT-PEP, a voluntary organisation, received funding, predominantly from health service sources as part of HIV prevention strategies, to develop a drop-in facility. From this facility were provided harm reduction services, such as provision of condoms and needle exchange, and also a genito-urinary medicine clinic. From here also, engagement with women could be developed with a view to offering support towards disengagement from street prostitution. Outreach harm reduction services were also offered to women working outwith the discretionary zone.

Continuing redevelopment of the Leith area with a consequential increase in the level of complaints to police, regarding the conduct of women soliciting and their potential clients, compelled the police to review the existing arrangements. In 2001 steps were taken to relocate the 'zone of discretionary prosecution' to an area which was wholly commercial and industrial in character. This was done by introducing enforcement within the previously defined discretionary area and encouraging women to 'relocate' to the newly defined area. There was little consultation, either with women or with the commercial and community interests in the newly designated area, and opposition to the change from within the new area quickly developed, to the extent that before the end of 2001 the policy of discretionary non-prosecution was abandoned. This had the effect of dispersing soliciting women to wherever they felt they could appropriately and safely solicit. This quickly brought tension with local residential interests and resident organisations, who made clear the unacceptability of the harassment and other aspects of community impact which arose from the dispersal process. These tensions have been severe, with community vigilantes patrolling localities and provocation of incidents towards and by women involved in street prostitution.

4.14 In these volatile and fragmented circumstances it has become increasingly difficult to engage constructively with women involved in street prostitution. The drop-in facility is no longer located in the area frequented by women involved in street prostitution, and harm reduction and contact work has had to be carried out solely through outreach. Circumstances are making it difficult for staff to locate and engage with women, whose personal safety is significantly jeopardised by the isolation and lack of contact generated by the fragmentation. The increased tension and threats of violence have added to the risk to professional staff engaged in outreach work. This has resulted in erosion of the capability to provide constructive service to the women and consequential undermining of the funding base for SCOT-PEP, whose future is, at the time of writing, under serious threat as it is no longer in a position to deliver the full services for which funding was granted.

4.15 In order to try to contain the most serious community effects of the dispersal the City Council is now using Anti-social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs), in an attempt to prevent the alarm and distress caused to communities by soliciting, drug-taking and associated behaviours including threats of violence and drug dealing. However, the Council is also conscious that use of ASBOs may further fuel dispersal, and places women involved in prostitution at further risk of more and more serious involvement in criminal justice measures. At the time of writing this report ASBOs have been obtained, the future of harm reduction and exiting services is precarious, tensions between the conflicting interests continue and the future direction of street based prostitution in Edinburgh - whether in relation to promoting community safety, protection of vulnerable women or support to exit prostitution - appears extremely uncertain. It is clear that agencies in Edinburgh are seeking leadership and guidance as to how the current complex predicament in the city might be resolved.

4.16 Glasgow

'I have to work. I don't want to come and stand out here. I need the money for my drugs.'

'It's not just the prostitution, it's the heroin as well that also de-sensitises you. You have to be a different person to come down here, do you know what I mean? You put on a bold front.. you have to be a totally different person just to cope with all this.' Glasgow Women

In Glasgow there are estimated to be 1000 to 1200 women sometimes involved in street prostitution of whom 80 to 120 might be expected to be on the streets on an average day or night. Despite there being evidence of growing cocaine use in the Glasgow area, women involved in street prostitution predominantly have heroin misuse as their main drug problem, in some cases combined with benzodiazepine and/or cocaine. Soliciting at night time has historically taken place within the area to the west of Central Station towards Anderston and this continues to be the main city centre location. Within the past 5 years there has been a significant increase in the volume of soliciting taking place within the Glasgow Green area in the east of the city (another traditional area for soliciting), and this has spread throughout the inner east end of the city in a number of core locations. Perhaps uniquely in Scottish cities, it is apparent that some soliciting takes place throughout the day as well as evening and night time, especially in the east end locations. The high number of women involved in street prostitution is partly explicable in that Glasgow is Scotland's largest city, but must also be attributable to the high levels of dependent drug use in the city. In addition, Glasgow is placed within a hinterland in West Central Scotland which incorporates Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and Inverclyde, and Ayrshire - all areas with localised serious drug problems, but where there is a gravitation towards Glasgow, both to obtain drugs and to obtain the means to acquire drugs. Therefore, women involved in soliciting in Glasgow may well originate outwith the city but be drawn to it because of the opportunity to solicit in relative anonymity and with an availability of customers (who of course may themselves originate from outwith the city.)

4.17 Services in Glasgow for women involved in street prostitution had their origins in HIV prevention initiatives, including provision of condoms and needle exchange - initially provided through detached outreach work, but provided from an early stage (1989) from drop-in facilities located within the city centre area where soliciting most commonly occurred. Over the years four different locations have been used for this purpose, developing towards the current purpose designed facility near to Argyle Street called Base 75. Throughout this period, inter-agency co-operation has been strong, with the drop-in service from the start being a joint health and social work initiative working within a framework of close police co-operation. The police in Glasgow have never adopted a non-enforcement approach to soliciting but have policed in a way which responds to complaints regarding prostitution-related concerns. It also recognises the public health benefits of not disrupting the contact between women involved in prostitution and public health and rehabilitative services, and not contributing to dispersal, which not only makes more difficult the management of the public health dimension of unsafe sexual behaviour and drug misuse, but also disperses the offending behaviours which accompany prostitution and drug misuse. Accordingly, without specific designation of a managed zone, dispersal had been limited and access to harm reduction services facilitated.

4.18 This stability continued until approximately 3 to 4 years ago when a rapidly growing emergence of street soliciting appeared in the east end of the city, initially in the vicinity of Glasgow Green, but quickly spreading to other parts of the inner east end. The main impulsion for this development came from a number of sources:

• high numbers of women working the city centre area - potentially reaching saturation levels;
• emergence of a 'new generation' of women drug users, younger and more 'driven' to solicit at any time and nearer to their home area in order to finance a pattern of heavy and chaotic drug use;
• this in turn has tapped into a pattern of purchasing where men will buy sex after night shifts and during breaks in their working day.

This emerging phenomenon, significant in scale, presents serious problems for services to establish access and engage rehabilitatively, given the geographical dispersal and the extended work-time patterns. Some outreach work has been undertaken to examine the nature and extent of need and how it may best be addressed, but at the present time this growth in numbers and areas affected is challenging services to find an effective response.

4.19 Glasgow has a number of service features unique to Scotland's cities:

• The City Council has adopted a policy in respect of prostitution which defines prostitution as abusive of women and commits the City to work towards the elimination of prostitution, to promote joint working between relevant services to achieve this objective and to work collaboratively to reduce the harm occasioned by prostitution whilst this objective is being pursued.
• The City Council has a working party with multi-agency composition with the remit of progressing these policy objectives.
• The City Council was instrumental in setting up a thematic Social Inclusion Partnership (Routes Out of Prostitution) as a vehicle to progress the co-ordination of work and the development of new services which would contribute to the achievement of these policy objectives.
• A service network has been developed, which addresses different aspects of this agenda and is increasingly co-ordinated towards the shared policy objectives. Some of these services have a broader remit than just the prostitution-related one, but contribute specifically to the strategy objectives. Others work solely to the prostitution remit. The service contributions fall into three main characteristics:

i) preventive work, which includes the Social Work Service's Young Women's Project, and a focused education programme in schools, addressing the risks of drug use and prostitution;

ii) harm reduction work, especially that at Base 75, which has joint health and social work participation and includes a comprehensive medical service, provision of condoms, needle exchange, structured methadone programmes, supported accommodation and engagement programmes intended to lead towards finding routes out of prostitution;

iii) rehabilitative 'routes out' work intended to help women to stop their involvement in prostitution and sustain a lifestyle away from prostitution.

In addition, other related services, such as the city's addiction services and criminal justice services, including the dedicated services for women offenders (such as the 218 'Time Out' project provided through a multi-agency partnership, managed through Turning Point Scotland, and funded by the Scottish Executive through its criminal justice allocation to Glasgow City Council) contribute to the strategic prostitution objectives.

4.20 As with the other three cities, pressures are growing in Glasgow, in relation to the traditional 'red light' area, because of redevelopment work intended to regenerate the city centre. This is creating both high profile commercial developments and prestige residential facilities in what have been traditionally the areas where soliciting has taken place, with lower personal risk because of intensive policing and CCTV coverage. The redevelopments lead to increased levels of complaints and pressures to move women on, through intensive law enforcement. At present these pressures do not appear to have reached the levels experienced in Edinburgh, and dispersal has not taken place - other than the separate growth of soliciting in the east end. However it is not difficult to foresee growing intensity to these pressures, as the character of the city centre area changes.

4.21 Summary

It will be seen from this that each of the four cities faces serious current and future issues regarding the incidence of street based prostitution within their boundaries. In particular the dilemmas to which policy and practice must respond are:

• how to safeguard women involved in prostitution, reduce the harm they experience, tackle the concurrent behaviours such as drug misuse and help them towards exiting prostitution,
• how to protect residential and commercial communities from the effects of soliciting and prostitution;
• how to prevent children and young women who may be vulnerable to becoming involved in prostitution from taking that step; and
• how to influence the attitudes which lead to the abuse of women sexually and physically through street prostitution.

4.22 Each of the cities has followed somewhat different paths in tackling these challenges, and has experienced different degrees of success and failure in delivering outcomes on this agenda. Each has also prioritised differently on the level of resource which has been seen as feasible to commit to this work. To some extent these differences will be reflective of the different nature of the cities and different characteristics of the prostitution 'problem'. Nevertheless, despite differences of approach between the cities it seems unlikely that any of the four cities would disagree fundamentally with the four policy and practice dilemmas expressed above. Where differences might arise is in the tactics, the prioritisation of resources, the partnerships necessary and the timescales against which work will be carried out. However, to a considerable degree such differences are natural and reflect local conditions and local politics. The fundamental common ground in objectives is what the Group has identified and proposes should be built upon, to establish consensus on best practice through shared experience and ideas.

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