‘Cleaning up Camden’: Street-based sex work and the use of ASBOs in the Age of Austerity

Abstract

Introduced in 1998 as part of the Crime and Disorder Act, anti-social behaviour orders [ASBOs] have been used in various locations around the UK to police street-based sex work [SBSW]. This chapter will argue that ASBOs were used regularly in a particular area of north London as part of a targeted policing strategy that focused on the removal of SBSW from key areas in Camden, and were specifically and intentionally utilised in order to remove SBSWs from the Kings Cross area. We argue that ASBOs and other punitive measures have been used as a way of sanitizing the area, removing ‘undesirable’ Others that might impinge on the aestheticized areas of consumption that regeneration seeks to create. Drawing on empirical data collected during 2010-2012, we argue that SBSW-ers in this area experienced a range of negative impacts as a result of this policing strategy, putting their health and safety at risk. Against a local backdrop of reduced funding (from 2008 onwards) to support women’s services in the third and public sectors, a lack of appropriate drug and mental health services, cuts to housing provision, and reduced social work and social care services, this chapter will provide an overview of the ways in which service providers, key stakeholders, and sex workers have been negatively impacted by the use of these punitive measures. We argue that despite suggestions from local government that ASBOs simply seek to assist and support sex workers, these approaches do little to reduce SBSW or help women working in prostitution.

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ORCID for Lucy Neville: orcid.org/0000-0002-5074-5241

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