Sex workers’ experiences of criminal justice in the United Kingdom: Improving responses to sexual violence and harms

Abstract

While there is no attempt here to connect commercial sex with violence intrinsically, types of harms and violence are often experienced by those working in the sex industry. Yet, sex workers often have negative perceptions and experiences of the criminal justice systems that should exist to help protect and deliver justice to all victims/survivors. The following analyses come from a mixed-methods, cross-national study exploring sexual violations and harms in direct sex work. This article focuses specifically on UK sex workers’ experiences of justice from deciding whether or not to report to the police, criminal investigations and court hearings. Findings highlight the specific barriers faced by sex workers in their pursuit of justice via the judiciary system. Some positive experiences and outcomes through criminal proceedings are also reported and provide opportunities to learn from best practice.

Introduction

Sex workers’ experience of violence

Over several decades, starting most prominently in the 1990s, a wide range of international organisations including Amnesty International and the World Health Organization (WHO) have urged nations to highlight violence against sex workers as a public health issue (Alexander, 1998; Platt et al., 2018) and human rights priority (Amnesty International, 2016; WHO et al., 2013). A 2014 meta-analysis of mostly qualitative or small sample studies indicates that sex workers face high levels of violence; lifetime prevalence of any workplace violence for sex workers ranged from 45% to 75% (Deering et al., 2014). Campbell et al. (2020) noted from an analysis of primary data from reports made by sex workers in the Republic of Ireland to UglyMugs.ie during 2015–2019 an increase in the extent and reporting of sexual violence since the introduction of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 which criminalised sex purchase and further disengaged the sex work community.

It is important to note when considering the nature and extent of violence that sex work includes some of the most vulnerable of groups of people – trans populations (Lyons et al., 2017); marginalised racial and ethnic minorities; poor people; LGBTQ+ youth – all whom have fewer resources and are structurally disadvantaged. Context is important here, as it has been reported that proportionally more ethnically and racially minoritised sex workers work on the street compared with their white counterparts (Platt et al., 2022), potentially increasing the risks they face. There are also specifics about the sexual violence and sexual victimisation of male sex workers who sell sex to men, and non-binary sex workers, which are documented (Ferreira et al., 2022) particularly under ‘end-demand’ criminalisation (including the criminalisation of purchasing sexual services) for instance in Canada (Koenig et al., 2023). While the prevalence of sexual violence is very difficult to assess in sex working populations, it is made more problematic by the significant under-reporting of crimes by sex workers to both the police and third-party reporting organisations (Ahrens, 2006; Johnson, 2012; Krüsi et al., 2014; Penfold et al., 2004). In a post-covid world, where trust in the police is at an all-time low in the United Kingdom (Bradford and Jackson, 2024), it is likely that engagement with police from marginal groups is also rare.

Sex workers’ experience of criminal justice

Literature for the past 20 years has established the notoriously poor relationships between the police and sex workers historically in the United Kingdom but we know less about their experiences of taking cases through the criminal justice system. The evidence in this article is drawn from a comparative international study (Scoular et al., 2023) that examined how the socio-legal context in three different legal environments shaped the experiences of sexual violence among people engaging in sex work. This research asked questions about how sex workers experienced policing, investigations, court cases and support through the criminal justice system to see where improvements can be made. This showed, using the concept of legal consciousness (how formal and informal laws and regulations are perceived and enacted), how varied legislative contexts impacted on the experiences and actions of sex workers in negotiating consent and responding to breaches of consent.

It is not uncommon for sex workers who are subjected to violence to choose not to report to the police. Reasons for this include a fear of being punished themselves and/or a general fear of maltreatment throughout the criminal process (Struyf, 2023). If sex workers perceive violence as just an expected ‘part of the job’ (e.g. Armstrong, 2019), this will also inform the disposition towards not reporting. These fears have been linked to the criminalisation of sex workers. In their study, Platt and colleagues found over a third (36.4%) of their participants to have experienced law enforcement intervention in the form of, for example, being sanctioned or arrested by the police in the previous 6 months (Platt et al., 2022). This proportion increased to over half (53.5%) when looking specifically at the law enforcement experiences of ethnically minoritised sex workers.

In the present study, sex workers in decriminalised settings felt more able and confident in handling unwanted behaviours, but the context of criminalisation reportedly diverted the focus of the criminal behaviour to the sex worker victim themselves (see Sanders et al., 2025). In addition, sex workers were influenced not just by formal laws, but by informal norms and rules of the contexts in which they worked. What this complex context does is leave sex workers to deal with the violence themselves, outside of formal resolution settings, in a way – paradoxically – that could be considered as an act of self-care, to avoid additional stigma and re-traumatisation (Stardust et al., 2021). This therefore has implications for how sex workers experience justice after violations, in comparison with their non-sex working counterparts.

Among sex work populations, there is considerable evidence on the under-reporting of crimes of all types to the police in the United Kingdom (Connelly et al., 2018) and detailed analyses have emerged to show that much sex worker contact with the police is negative or adversarial (Campbell, 2014; Klambauer, 2017; Sanders and Campbell, 2007). The academic literature and testimonies from sex workers and activist groups continue to reveal narratives of unfair treatment by the police in the United Kingdom. The testimonies of 49 indoor and outdoor sex workers in Klambauer’s (2017) study in England suggests a ‘policing roulette’ due to a lack of consistency in approach across police forces. Many sex workers presume that they will not be treated with respect by police, and that where enforcement-led strategies prevail, there are ‘insuperable barriers to the success of protective policing’ (Klambauer, 2017: 270). Where criminalisation persists, relationships will inevitably be frayed as the police ultimately have a duty to enforce the law (Dewey and St. Germain, 2014; Platt et al., 2022). Police investigations, arrests and convictions of sexual assault are inconsistent and discriminatory, with police sometimes taking the rape, attack or murder of sex workers, particularly LGBTQ+ workers, less seriously than attacks of non-sex workers (Benoit et al., 2015; Kinnell, 2008; Shannon and Csete, 2010; Spencer et al., 2018). From a comprehensive study of 197 sex workers in East London, Elmes et al. (2021) noted that street-based sex workers experienced significantly more inequalities than indoor workers, including 42% reporting violence from police, leading the authors to link police enforcement of criminalisation as a major barrier and harm for sex workers.

Bowen et al. (2021) have reported, while not specific to sexual violence crimes, in recent years the NUM charity has witnessed a decline in the willingness of sex workers to report to the police. In 2012, 28% of those reporting to NUM chose to engage with the legal system; in 2020, this was down to 7.7% among off-street independent sex workers. What is also concerning is that consent to share information anonymously with the police also declined from 95% in 2012 to 69% in 2020. Bowen et al. (2021) share evidence from a 2020 survey from 88 members that for 72% of this sample, ‘experiences or fear of criminalisation’ was the main barrier to reporting. Three other reasons for avoiding police were identified: ‘experiences or fear of stigmatisation’ (69%), the ‘lack of trust in police’ (68%) and the ‘need for privacy; not wanting to be outed’ (67%). From our own research it appears that this downwards trend persists.

Policy and practice landscape

It has been well reported about the crisis in the criminal justice system in England and Wales regarding the length of time cases take to come to court (Godfrey et al., 2022), particularly for VAWG (violence against women and girls) cases. This information is particularly relevant to sexual offences as Siddique (2023, for The Guardian) reported on the United Kingdom’s all-time highest number of rape cases delayed in reaching court in 2023 with an average of 390 days from charge to conclusion. Across the criminal justice timeline, from report to court, there has been a focus on the improvement of national operating models for both the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Spurred on in part from the findings and outputs from Operation Soteria (see, for example, NPCC, n.d.), the College of Policing have committed to suspect-focused and victim-centred investigations (College of Policing, 2023). Similarly, in 2023, the CPS shared a new National Operating Model for Adult Rape Prosecution (CPS, 2023). The intention behind the new operating model was to improve the service offered by the CPS, ‘bringing more offenders to justice and building victims’ trust’. Thus, the experiences for all victims/survivors reporting sexual offences should be improving. However, this research in particular is driven, in part, to consider whether there have been improvements in the relationship between policing and the sex work community, more specifically, as defined in the National Police Chiefs’ Council Guidance (NPCC). NPCC guidance from 2019 (also echoed in the 2024 version) pledged to ‘engage with sex workers to build mutual trust and confidence’ (p. 7). This guidance was an indicative shift in the policing of what would have previously been considered ‘prostitution’, where sex workers would have been seen as the criminals to be penalised, and where the complexities of sex work were not recognised (Sanders et al., 2021).

Over 20 years ago, Penfold et al. (2004) documented the advent of a different type of multi-agency partnership between police, support services and local authorities. The collaboration in Merseyside between police and outreach organisations which encouraged sex workers to report crimes to the police became known as the ‘Ugly Mugs’ project. Drawing in part on the hate crime model applied to crimes against sex workers (Campbell, 2014) ‘the Merseyside model’ has persisted in that area for nearly two decades (since 2006) and has been adopted by at least three other forces (Sanders et al., 2022). While this approach has recently come under criticism (Holt and Gott, 2022), evidence from sex workers who have experienced the hate crime model suggests this approach is one of the few pathways to prosecution in the criminal justice system under the current UK legal framework (Campbell and Sanders, 2021).

While it is not our intention to suggest that the police and criminal justice system offers (or can provide) a panacea to sex workers finding justice in the absence of more widespread legal reform, it is nevertheless our argument that the context of partial criminalisation, and a lack of specialist intervention for sex workers, can have significant impacts on sex workers’ experiences through criminal justice proceedings. In the discussion below, we outline how the pursuit of criminal ‘justice’ may have merit at least for some sex workers and can be considered alongside decriminalisation. In the conclusion we argue that a focus on the criminal justice dimension can inform debates about sexual violence more generally, particularly around conditional consent.

Overview and aims

In this article we cover the following objectives: (a) consider the reasons why sex workers do and do not report sexual violence to the police in the United Kingdom; (b) explore sex workers’ experiences of police investigations; and (c) consider the experiences of sex workers who take cases to court and through the criminal justice system. In the discussion, we reflect on a decade of renewed narratives among the police and policy guidance which defers away from messages of criminalisation of sex work/ers to one of safeguarding individuals and disrupting exploiters. We highlight sex workers’ lived experiences of navigating criminal justice proceedings in the United Kingdom. We discuss the complexities of regional policing at an operational level with policing of sex work being influenced by local politics and governance approaches. We conclude with some suggestions for utilising these lived experiences for shaping better operational practice and policing responses, that could be reinforced by legal reform which centres prevention of harm for all, including those involved in selling sex in the United Kingdom.

Methodology

The discussion below relates to a larger comparative study of four jurisdictions where the legal regulation of commercial sex differs significantly. The details of the study can be found in the published protocol (Scoular et al., 2023). The jurisdictions included in the study were the United Kingdom (partial criminalisation), the United States (criminalisation), Nevada in the United States (legalisation) and New Zealand (decriminalisation). Here we report on a subset of the data from the United Kingdom. This project is a significant milestone in the analysis of sexual violence in sex working populations as it is one of the few studies to adopt a comparative legal framework analysis.

The project involved a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative components and was conducted in two phases (see Scoular et al., 2023). Across both phases of the project, we drew from the literature a range of good practice in researching sexual violence and prioritised these principles in the design, administration and analysis phases of the research. Phase one involved a questionnaire designed and targeted at those sex workers who had experienced some form of sexual violence (sexual assault and rape) as well as those behaviours that relate to conditional consent such as the removal of a condom, non-payment for services provided or paying less than was agreed. Experiences of the police and the criminal justice system were also assessed. While the survey was designed to develop understanding of sexual violence and contract violations, the eligibility criteria did not specify prior experience. Phase two of the research was qualitative, with a specific approach tailored to the respondents. Sex worker respondents were recruited via advocacy and support organisations and this element of the research incorporated a participatory action approach with peer researchers involved from the outset to engage sex workers in the interview process. Trauma-informed and feminist interviewing techniques were adopted with sex worker respondents which had the benefits of researchers making a concerted effort to reduce the hierarchy of the interviewer–interviewee relationship by engaging peers and survivors of sexual violence in the process; providing information to participants before and after engagement; and being very attuned to the emotionality of lived experiences (see Campbell et al., 2010; Cowling, 2003).

The findings presented below are based on the survey data from across the United Kingdom (UK sample n = 230; full international sample N = 693) and interviews with sex workers who have experienced some form of sexual violence and had some engagement with police and/or criminal justice processes (n = 15; 10 from England, Scotland and Wales, and 5 from Northern Ireland). Free text responses to survey questions were also analysed alongside the multiple-choice options.

Findings

Police reporting and investigations

In our UK survey, 230 sex workers were asked whether they had experienced breaches of the contract which they had previously agreed with a client – in some cases amounting to criminal violence such as rape – ever and within the last 12 months. Of the sample (n = 230), 77.8% had some experience of at least one of the breaches/violations within the last 12 months, including clients paying less than agreed or not paying at all, and anal or vaginal penetration without consent. However, the last time a breach of this nature occurred, only 13% of respondents reported to the police. Sex workers in this study flagged up a range of personal circumstances that were often behind their cautiousness to report the harms they experienced. These reasons were often closely connected to their sex worker status. From the multiple-choice options in the survey data, we know that the most common reason for not wanting to report to the police was that respondents did not want anyone to know they were a sex worker.

Choosing to report to the police was informed both by past experiences and general perceptions the sex workers held of police intervention. In the most part, these views meant crimes against the sex workers would never be reported to the police. In the survey free text responses and interview data, there was a clear theme of a lack of faith in the police in being able to take experiences seriously and actualise criminal proceedings:

I was also ‘r-worded’ [raped] before I started sex work which I reported to the police which they did not investigate or help me with. So even before sex work, I didn’t trust police and I never will until police take ‘r word’ victims seriously. (UK Survey Respondent)

There’s been other times when I’ve been attacked and that and the police has just not been interested. I’ve even had the police turn round and say it’s an occupational hazard. (Anna, Female, Street-based)

What is interesting in the first quote above is that the respondent’s reluctance to report to the police was influenced by their perception of how they respond to sexual violence more broadly. The other respondent above, Anna, also reflects on discrete prior experiences and the discriminatory response they received – the attack being considered ‘an occupational hazard’.

Distrust in the police was clearly demonstrated further in survey findings. We asked respondents to rate the following statement ‘The police take rape against sex workers seriously’ on a Likert-type scale. Among UK respondents, 63% reported that they disagreed (slightly or strongly) with this statement. The majority (57%) of UK survey respondents in this project disagreed with the notion that the police investigate rape properly.

What we heard from respondents, also, was that the lack of trust in the police extended further than just not getting an effective response. For some, the violence they feared the most was from the very system from which they should have felt able to seek support:

I don’t trust the cops and fear them raping more than I fear clients harming me. (UK Survey Respondent)

I’m really scare [sic] of the police. More so than I have ever been of clients. (UK Survey Respondent)

Some do still choose to report, but for one respondent, Queen, after having reported, it was clear that police engagement was not helpful and more traumatic than it was worth:

For me, going to the police is more traumatic, I wish that wasn’t the case but it is just sadly – and I don’t think that’s just with sex work, I think any woman who’s been assaulted, going to the police is further traumatising and not likely to end in anything, do you know what I mean? I was quite naïve at the start of this because I was like oh yeah, go to the police because before the Nordic model, the police were, I felt like they were on our side. It’s just most women, particularly trans sex workers, they regret reporting to the police sadly, it feels like there’s no recourse. In fact, women who have gone to the police have ended up getting evicted . . . it’s just not worth it. (Queen, Female, Street-based, Northern Ireland)

There was a sense that the laws on sex work ultimately exacerbated the risk sex workers face. Queen in her statement above makes a point of relaying how the police reaction changed for the worse once the new law was introduced in 2017 in Northern Ireland that made it a crime to pay for sex. In England, sex workers felt that because clients were also criminalised, they were often the brunt of aggression that was misplaced:

If it was legalised, then the clients would be able to go to the police and report that they’ve been robbed, so then there’d be less chance of them coming out and taking revenge because obviously, they can’t go to the police at the moment because they’re going to get done for cold calling. So they’ll just come and take it out on the girl. (Anna, Female, Street-based)

For those who did pursue reporting, there were also positive experiences from engaging with the police:

They were so good with that private client, when I reported that the police came over and they cuffed him, they took his money. (Sabrina, Female, Independent)

On that occasion, the head officer, she was brilliant, she went out of her way to get in court and I was never doubted whatsoever, she was behind me all the way. (Anna, Female, Street-based)

Although these may have been isolated incidents, positive experiences provide an alternative narrative to that of the, perhaps more pervasive, negative experience, and highlight opportunities for criminal justice staff to engage more positively with sex workers.

In addition, although the legalities around sex work, where it is partially criminalised in the United Kingdom, had proved a barrier for some, Sabrina, (below) had always felt supported:

Interviewer: You have found the police to be useful and have generally helped whenever you have needed them?

Sabrina: All the time. Because what I’m doing is not illegal, I’m selling my body at 25, it’s not, I’m not doing anything illegal. It’s my body, I can do whatever I want. Nobody’s forcing me to do anything. . . (Sabrina, Female, Independent)

What is evident through the above experiences is the importance of perception. If sex workers do not feel they can report to the police, there won’t be opportunities for them to demonstrate how their responses can be supportive towards sex worker victims/survivors. If sex workers do report to the police, the way in which they are treated from that very initial meeting is fundamental to being able to continue to build trust, as per the intention of NPCC guidance (2025).

Experiences through the courts

From our survey, few of the sex worker respondents had confidence in the criminal justice system particularly if a case progresses through to the courts. Survey respondents were asked to rate the following statement on a Likert-type scale: ‘I have confidence in getting justice if a case is taken to court’ – 61.3% strongly or slightly disagreed with this statement. As noted above, perceptions of the criminal justice system for sex workers can be heavily influenced by the experiences of their own and fellow workers. For instance, some participants in this study specifically explained how the process of giving evidence, standing and being questioned in the witness box, was a brutal experience:

The trial was horrible because basically the prosecution made it sound like I wasn’t raped, I just weren’t paid, do you know what I mean?. . . I know it’s the prosecution’s job but come on, man. . . my injuries was horrific, I was raped anally and vaginally, I had stitches anally and so it was obvious that it was a violent rape. It was obvious. I spent three weeks in hospital like I said. They don’t keep you in hospital for nothing do they? But they still put me in, they wrung me through the mill. (Anna, Female, Street-based)

This experience of Anna’s was closely tied to her status as a sex worker. Stardust et al. (2021: 142) argue from the Australian context: ‘sex workers are denied victim status as they are seen by law as “irresponsible citizens” and blamed for their experiences of crime’ which results in a systematic acceptance of the ‘whore stigma’ in the criminal justice system. Where positive experiences with the police were noted by sex workers, albeit rarely, these were where forces had trained officers, specifically for liaising with sex workers, and/or in states where sex work was decriminalised (Stardust et al., 2021). While this is no surprise given the stigmatised nature of selling sex in society at large (Benoit et al., 2018; Krüsi et al., 2016), it does shine a questionable light on whether the jury approach is appropriate for sexual offence cases. This provides the context for the views of sex workers in the current study’s survey, for whom a large majority (65.2%) disagreed with the statement ‘Overall, I have confidence in the criminal justice system’.

Stigma experienced in courts is felt heavily by sex workers. One of the few sex workers in the UK sample who had gone to court, a woman who worked on the street, revealed how she sustained a violent sexual attack which was prosecuted twice: first it was a hung jury outcome before a second trial saw a significant conviction. The emotional toll of being involved in two court cases spanning several years after an horrendous attack was clearly a major burden where the identity of the victim in the case as a sex worker was a dominant characteristic of the whole ordeal:

When we got the [hung jury], it crushed me, it really did, I was like how can we get a [not guilty] and I honestly believe it was because I was a working girl. There was no doubt of what happened, there was no doubt that something happened because of my injuries but I honestly believe it was people’s perception of working girls that made them say not guilty, I really do because even when I was giving my evidence, I’m looking at the jury and it’s like you can just see, just with body language and that and I’m thinking, ‘you lot need your eyes opening because not everybody lives in that comfortable world’. (Anna, Female, Street-based)

Despite the difficulties faced by some, others in this study were still clear that they would progress through proceedings as far as they could. Some of the reasons why a difficult and lengthy court case was pursued by the victim-survivor were to show their own truth in a public forum and to secure punishment they felt the perpetrator deserved:

I said, at the end of the day, the reason I stuck it out is because I knew 100% I were telling the truth and I just thought, ‘Yeah, you could, if I don’t turn up to court or anything like that, it makes me look guilty, it makes me look like I’m not compassionate enough’ which means has he really done all these things you’re saying? Because you’re not compassionate enough to get him locked up and then just because of that he walks free and then it makes me, not only does he walk free so he’s not punished for what he’s done, it also makes me look, so I end up getting punished because of it. No, I’m not having that. (Tess, Female, Street-based)

I had the desire to stand up in court and see justice done. . . . my lawyer was doing everything, he was finding all the evidence, they was having a lot. I would see the doctor to see if I was raped. It was a big, huge book with everything that he did to me. But I wanted to go there and I saw him, he looked like a crazy man. (Diamond, Female, Independent)

In the context of cultural stigmatisation, being able to reclaim the narrative around violence against sex workers, and take back some control in pressing on with criminal proceedings could be seen by some sex workers as the most empowering option.

Support through criminal proceedings

Those who had been through criminal proceedings were reflective on the process they experienced and improvements that could be adapted to make the witness feel more secure and less re-traumatising. There were several accounts among the interviewees of the support they had received from victim charities during the court process. Stephanie explained,

Stephanie: I had to go to the court, but I have not to declare because he declared himself guilty. And in the same night he raped a woman. Firstly he raped a woman and then he saw me and he thought I had money and he did the same to me.

Interviewer: Do you know what the sentence was?

Stephanie: Around eight years in jail. . . I have support, they support me with everything, it’s a charity for support people of crimes, and they keep me informed with emails. He is in jail for five years. I feel safe. (Stephanie, Trans female, Street-based)

Ultimately, it was a level of specialism and understanding of the nuances of sex work specifically that participants in this study valued and felt as though they would need to progress through services and processes. In an area of the United Kingdom which has had a dedicated police Sex Work Liaison Officer (SWLO) for some time, there was a clear link between sex workers reporting sexual violence and unfaltering support given through the court process by the police personnel and other victim support assistance. This is also clearly supported outside of this project by Brown et al. (2024) who found the role to help build trust and improve the investigation of reports sex workers made. Specifically, they noted how SWLOs can support police decision-making around where the sex worker may be the offender or the victim – an important distinction when sex workers are reporting violence against them. Specialist workers in services workers interact with through criminal justice proceedings can therefore provide multi-faceted benefits:

I would sort out for special workers to be in every area, police, hospitals, surgeries, the main protection thing for me, that’s what I would do, is make sure that other working girls or ex working girls can speak to police officers and tell them what they need so that they would hopefully listen and actually do it. It’s all about protection now, because we don’t have any really, we don’t have any rights. And if sex working was made like a legal thing and you’re paying taxes and stuff, surely you’d be protected then, they should do that as well. (Emily, Female, Various)

Trauma-informed policing and criminal justice systems with regard to sexual violence alone, therefore, are perhaps not enough to enable sex workers to feel as though justice may be possible for them specifically. This possibility, as Emily describes above, could be realised even more readily through full decriminalisation of sex work. Creating a distance between the legalities of the work they do and the violence sex workers are subject to felt like an important step for sex workers in this project.

Discussion

Revealing further how sex workers experience the police and the criminal justice system in the United Kingdom in a timely way is important given that we approach a 10-year period of National Police Chiefs’ Council Guidance which has shifted in its emphasis from criminalisation of sex workers to focusing on safeguarding, protection and targeting offenders as the dominant narrative. A longer-term view is needed to put the current context into perspective to see in some ways how far the narrative from policing has changed and its movement away from alignment with government rhetoric. Back in 2004, the ‘Paying the Price’ Home Office consultation and review of laws (Home Office, 2004) set out plans to ‘do something’ about prostitution. Admittedly even 20 years ago, the sex industry was organised in an entirely different way with street-based sex work highly visible and protecting minors the core mission. But still, as Sanders noted in 2004 (Soothill and Sanders, 2004) this juncture was a missed opportunity because the insinuations that the sex industry is only ever dangerous, anti-social and a menace to society was what framed the government review and policy approach for the next decade. The ‘deserving prostitute’ was defined through the ‘exiting’ discourse which became embedded into Home Office guidance, policy and welfare provision (Scoular and O’Neill, 2007). Anti-social Behaviour Orders plus Engagement and Support Orders (Neville and Sanders-McDonagh, 2018; Sagar, 2010; Scoular and Carline, 2014) were the main forms of intervention, with criminal justice agencies working with welfare agencies to police the exiting process (and punish lapses). Engagement and Support Orders introduced by the Policing and Crime Act (2009) (delivered by a range of multi-agency partners) were given to sex workers who were arrested for street offences. We are mostly a long way from this now.

The past 15 years have held significant change in how the UK police leadership understands the complexity of the sex industry, the strong multi-stakeholder partnership models that have been favoured in many towns and cities (with various success) and government investment in small amounts of crime prevention and protection mechanisms such as National Ugly Mugs since 2010 have provided specialist support. The need to make distinctions between voluntary consensual adult sex work and other forms which are coerced and forced with exploiters at the helm is the core difference in the approach which is borne out in principles and expected practice. The changes were incremental, spurred on by a new leadership (including the first senior female officer to hold the sex work and policing portfolio in 2015/16). The 2019 Guidance (refreshed in 2025), developed by the NPCC senior lead working with an advisory group of social scientists, public health specialists, CPS delegates and sex worker representatives used the principles of evidence-based policing to provide an approach to policy-making based on statistical analysis and empirical research which documented lived experience of sex workers. Importantly, the guidance was produced with operational police officers and staff in mind who work on the frontline of policing daily. Five core principles were identified by the Guidance working group and translated into key statements, to shape advice to officers going forward (NPCC, 2019). These statements included acknowledgements of the complex and stigmatised nature of the sex industry, and the need for policing to start from a position of protecting the vulnerable and holding to account the exploiters. The Guidance also noted the importance for police to use intelligence gained through engagement to better understand the context.

Now in 2025, senior leaders in policing are candid and public about their position on the outdated nature of the ‘prostitution’ laws, particularly that of brothel keeping which criminalises two people working together (see Gross and Heal, 2023 in Financial Times). The approach in policing guidance reflects the tone of focusing on offenders and exploiters and not using the existing law to prosecute sex workers, but where appropriate to offer harm reduction and safeguarding through partnership models of working as described in the Harm Reduction Compass which guides current police thinking (see Sanders et al., 2021). The release of the most recent guidance (NPCC, 2025: 7) reinforced the initial five principles stated above, provides more information on migrant sex work, the hate crime approach and the online sex industry and adult service websites as new dynamics for consideration in policing. The messages are clear: that policing should be about disrupting offenders and safeguarding where appropriate in partnership with the correct agencies.

The conundrum arises because this narrative at the senior level which is strongly evidenced in policy guidance is not translating to the experiences of those small numbers of sex workers who seek justice via the criminal justice system. Our project reiterates much of the existing literature and firmly demonstrates the discrepancies between what police leadership want to happen (and is written in the operational guidance) and the reality of individual (mainly women’s) experience of reporting sexual violence as a sex worker. One positive is that those sex workers who choose and persist with the criminal justice approach for often very serious violations do get significant outcomes for the perpetrators. Yet the process and experience of doing this is unsatisfactory and often re-traumatising. What works in these situations is well evidence so there is no need for reinvention of the wheel here in relation to policy, while of course cultural context is key where policy is imported from elsewhere. International learning should be incorporated here to understand what could be improved. Where sex work is decriminalised in areas such as New Zealand, the authors found in the larger study from where this article originated, increased individual understanding of workplace and legislative rights, as well as wider options for both informal (via managers of brothels or advocacy groups) and formal (such as police) resolution for sex workers (Sanders et al., 2025). These findings were directly connected, including by sex workers themselves, to the legislative context of decriminalisation and their rights written into law.

How can this disjuncture between the policing policy and the lived experience be addressed?

Struyf (2023) in the review of the literature of policing effects on sex work communities does conclude that the only real way to improve procedural justice is through decriminalisation which would (in time) shift attitudes to sex workers in society and in professional bodies and organisational structures. Platt et al. (2018: 2–3) conclude from their meta-study

. . . evidence demonstrate the extensive harms associated with criminalisation of sex work, including laws and enforcement targeting the sale and purchase of sex, and activities relating to sex work organisation. There is an urgent need to reform sex-work-related laws and institutional practices so as to reduce harms and barriers to the realisation of health. . . . The qualitative synthesis showed that in contexts of any criminalisation, repressive policing of sex workers, their clients, and/or sex work venues disrupted sex workers’ work environments, support networks, safety and risk reduction strategies, and access to health services and justice. It demonstrated how policing within all criminalisation and regulation frameworks exacerbated existing marginalisation, and how sex workers’ relationships with police, access to justice, and negotiating powers with clients have improved in decriminalised contexts.

Such a dynamic shift in regulatory framework has been proven to support a more effective relationship between sex workers and the police. Indeed, when comparing perceptions of the police and criminal justice process internationally, Sanders et al. (2025) found that while there weren’t marked differences in police reporting of violence and breaches of contract, belief that the police would take seriously what was reported was in fact higher in decriminalised and legalised settings. While we do have localised examples of good practice in relation to sex work and policing in the United Kingdom, this ultimately sits alongside a lack of confidence about the interventions of the police generally, and specifically about issues relating to violence against women and girls. Not only has police legitimacy been found to be fragile when it comes to sex work for many years (Brooks-Gordon, 2006), public trust in the police is more strained than ever before.

Positive examples from decriminalised settings suggest dramatic shifts in the relationships between police and sex workers can be achieved where safety is the priority (Armstrong, 2017). Unfortunately, from within the United Kingdom, there continues to be limited room for change in the regulatory system away from partial criminalisation, despite senior police officers and policing guidance making significant moves forward in both operational approach, political narrative and pragmatic approaches to safety and violence experienced by sex workers (Sanders et al., 2021). In England and Wales, law reform has been slow to actualise with current governance being over 70 years old, while sex purchase legislation was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2015 and growing political support in Scotland for this approach (Scottish Government, 2024). Within this impasse, in the last 20 years, forward-thinking police leadership adopted a shift in approach and relayed important messages for sex work communities as well as operational guidelines to the frontline (NPCC, 2025).