Policing Street Prostitution: The Street Offences Squad in London

The National Association of Probation Officers has been in favour of decriminalisation of soliciting for prostitution since its AGM in 1977, a stance further extended in its policy document PP74/87 where it states ‘the role of the probation officer given NAPOs commmitment to decriminalisation of this offence must be to work within the law as it exists and to mitigate the harmful effects of the Criminal Justice System on people at present working as street prostitutes…’.

At the Annual General Meeting of the Magistrates' Association in October 1986 the following resolution. ‘This Annual General Meeting urges Her Majesty's Government to introduce legislation amending s.1 of the Street Offences Act 1959 in order to provide more effective sentences for the offences of soliciting, (ii) In the event of such legislation not being effected the law on soliciting should be withdrawn from the penal code. Both parts of the resolution were carried nem con.

In areas outside London, prosecutions for kerb crawling and poncing have often been obtained by plain clothes officers. In Manchester, Moss Side, plain clothes officers dealt with the east of the city's prostitution problem (Edwards 1984) Russell (1984:69) notes, “The Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire provided data on 39 potential clients who solicited plain clothes police women”. By 1988 the Street Offences Squad in central London was policing prostitution in uniform and plain clothes.

Plain clothes officers have not been any more successful, prosecutions are now being brought on both annoyance and persistence.

Prices charged by girls working in Mayfair range from £100 upwards for sex, some girls spending the night with a client for the right fee. Girls working in Paddington charge £25 for straight sex the whole encounter lasting about ten minutes. In Wolverhampton girls charged £10 for straight sex.

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