four - Not getting away with it: linking sex work and hate crime in Merseyside

Summary

Introduction

In the wake of concerns about high levels of unreported violent and other crime against sex workers, and a number of murders of women involved in street sex work, Merseyside Police in 2006 became the first force in the UK to treat crimes against sex workers as hate crime. This chapter draws on my experiences of bridging the gap between hate crime scholarship and hate crime policy, as manager of the sex work project in Liverpool between 2005 and 2008, and as a researcher who has carried out a number of studies in the city, including one that found support for the policy among police and sex workers, with a consensus that sex workers can be victims of hate crime. Sex workers are a group whose experiences of victimisation fit within a number of established definitions of hate crime but who have sat outside established hate crime groups. Locating crimes against sex workers as hate crime links some existing conceptualisations of hate with established analyses in the sex work literature of the ‘othering’ of sex workers and how this generates harassment and violence towards them. Sex workers’ experiences of targeted victimisation generated also by ‘perceived vulnerability’ illustrates the complexities of hate crime, confirming the need for an inclusive conceptual hate crime framework called for by Chakraborti and Garland (2012). Such a framework would welcome other victim groups, enabling them to share in the support afforded by hate crime policies, reducing not reinforcing their marginalisation. In Merseyside the inclusion of sex workers in hate crime policing policy has seen real advantages for a group who have been relatively ‘unprotected’ by law and policy from victimisation.

Sex worker victimisation: under-reporting, criminalisation and safety

A considerable body of research literature illustrates the levels and patterns of sex worker victimisation, showing them as more at risk of harassment and violence than the general public, with risks varying across different sectors. Offenders often display repeat and escalating offending patterns (Kinnell, 2008). As with established hate crime groups, sex worker victimisation tends to get attention when there are high profile murders (Iganksi, 2002). For sex workers this is particularly the case when serial murders occur: for example, the five women murdered by Steven Wright in Ipswich in 2006.