Introduction

In July 2004, the Home Office announced the largest review of prostitution law and policy since the 1950s. The aim of the review was to provide a basis on which a realistic and coherent strategy to prostitution could be developed. Similar consultations and reforms had just been completed in relation to other forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, rape and other sexual offences. Based on findings from Home Office evaluations (Hester and Westmarland, 2004) a consultation paper called Paying the price was published (Home Office, 2004). In his foreword to the consultation David Blunkett (Home Secretary at the time) acknowledged that many of the laws relating to prostitution were ‘… outdated, confusing and ineffective’ (Home Office, 2004, p 5). Almost 6,000 paper copies of the consultation were distributed (in addition to the online copy) and the review team received 861 responses by the closing date in November 2004. In January 2006 the government published its new Coordinated Prostitution Strategy (Home Office, 2006).

Before the publication of the Coordinated Prostitution Strategy there was a lack of clear policy in relation to prostitution in England and Wales. Legislation was situated within a public nuisance framework where prostitution itself was not illegal but the activities associated with it were (for example soliciting, kerb crawling, procuring and brothel keeping). This framework emerged from the 1957 Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, widely known as the Wolfenden Report after its chairman, Lord John Wolfenden. It is perhaps more infamous for its recommendation that some homosexual acts be decriminalised; the committee applied the same logic to both prostitution and homosexuality: that certain acts, however immoral, should be an issue of private not public control.