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This paper explores the current approach to the interaction between policing and sex work in England and Wales. It reviews the legal and policy context and outlines current policing guidance and priorities, introducing the Harm Reduction Compass as a mechanism to advance policing policy and optimise operational decision-making. Through critical discussion of occupational culture and reforms in policing, it also assesses how continuity, reliability, and transferability can be achieved across police forces within the existing hostile and outdated statutory framework. The Harm Reduction Compass (HRC) aims to focus policing resources on adult sexual exploitation and crimes experienced by sex workers by decoding the complexities of different individuals' personal circumstances. This paper proposes a new framework as a model to aid operational policing by triaging different scenarios to reach the most appropriate response. This new model, which identifies autonomy and harm as the most significant indicators, addresses harm and vulnerability holistically and combines policing with public health and community-based approaches; this ensures the pathway to assistance and intervention is an integrated multi-partnership. The HRC is a step forward in progressing police culture around the use of language and in dealing with crimes against sex workers in the most appropriate way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current British government policy on sex work aims to reduce prostitution, challenge its inevitability and in terms of support services for sex workers is heavily focused towards exiting strategies for those in sex work. Exiting programmes are complex, often lengthy and need to meet a range of holistic needs in order to assist individuals who want to leave sex work and problematic drug use. Addressing drug use has been to the fore as part of exiting programmes due to the very high rates of problematic drug use reported amongst female street sex workers and drug use being identified as a key factor shaping routes into and sustaining involvement with street-based sex work. This contrasts with the much lower levels of problematic drug use found amongst indoor sex workers. This article brings together findings from a 2002 Home Office funded study of sex work and drug use careers and a 2007 UK Network of Sex Work Projects review of specialist services for sex workers which looked at the provision of ''exiting services'' within projects. The principle of sex worker choice united all of the surveyed projects so that irrespective of whether exiting was seen as a vital goal or a potential end point, choice was seen as crucial for client engagement and for the ethics of service delivery. Findings suggest that current government policy focused on exiting is unlikely to meet its aims and whilst exit support is a vital part of holistic needs, an emphasis on exiting at a strategic level can endanger and erode other vital aspects of support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the number of sex workers in Scotland and England who are in contact with specialist services for sex workers. Then, using methods and multipliers derived from the frequently quoted Kinnell study (1999) the paper provides various updated estimates of the wider population of sex workers. We point out the limits of our estimates and the methodological difficulties of estimating the size of this hidden population. The paper argues that many claims about sex work made by politicians and the media are misleading especially where they conflate sex work with trafficking and abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sexual offending is both a social problem and a public health issue. To date, no positive treatment effects have been found in quasi-experimental institutional treatment programmes., Objectives: To evaluate effects of psychological interventions on target sexual acts, urges or thoughts for people who have been convicted, or cautioned, for sexual offences., Search Strategy: 33 electronic databases including the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register (Issue 4, 2002) were searched. Relevant authors and organisations were contacted for additional data., Selection Criteria: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) involving adults treated in institutional or community settings for sexual behaviours that have resulted in conviction or caution for sexual offences, or offences or violent behaviours with a sexual element. Behavioural, cognitive-behavioural, psychodynamic, and psychoanalytic therapies were compared with each other, drug treatment, or standard care., Data Collection and Analysis: Independent assessors selected and assessed studies and extracted data. Data were excluded where more than 50% of participants were lost to follow-up. For binary outcomes, standard estimations of risk ratio (RR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. Where possible, number-needed-to-treat or harm statistics (NNT, NNH) and their 95% CIs were calculated., Main Results: We included nine RCTs with over 500 male offenders, 231 of whom have been followed up for a decade. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in groups may reduce re-offence at one year for child molesters when compared with standard care (n=155, 1 RCT, RR any sexual/violent crime - 0.41 CI 0.2 to 0.82, NNT 6 CI 3 to 20). However, when CBT was compared with a trans-theoretical counselling group therapy the former may have increased poor attitudes to treatment (corrected n=38, 1 RCT, RR 2.8 CI 1.26 to 6.22, NNH 2 CI 1 to 5). The largest trial compared broadly psychodynamic group therapy with no treatment for 231 men guilty of paedophilia, exhibitionism or sexual assault. Re-arrest over ten years was greater for those allocated to group therapy (result not statistically significant [n=231, 1 RCT, RR 1.87 CI 0.78 to 4.47])., Authors' Conclusions: Limited data make recommendations difficult. One study suggests that a cognitive approach results in a decline in re-offending after one year. Another large study shows no benefit for group therapy and suggests the potential for harm at ten years. The ethics of providing this still-experimental treatment to a vulnerable and potentially dangerous group of people outside of a well-designed evaluative study are debatable. This review proves such studies are possible.