During the 1970s and 1980s, a number of vice squads emerged in different locations in England and Wales to respond to the growing public concern about street prostitution. They adopted an essentially enforcement approach which was aimed predominantly at female prostitutes. During the 1990s,...

Traditionally, prostitution has not been criminalized in England and Wales, regarded as a private transaction conducted between two consenting adults. However, there are many pieces of legislation that seek to regulate and punish a wide variety of acts associated with prostitution in the...

In the UK media, the Netherlands is often described as sexually liberal because of the seeming availability and visibility of commercial sex and pornographic materials. But Kilvington et al (2001) argue that the majority of the population remain strongly censorious, and the moral attitude of the...

Signalling an important contribution to the field, Phoenix and Oerton's ‘Illicit and Illegal: Sex, Regulation and Social Control' offers a critical account of contemporary efforts to regulate sex. The book begins with the paradox that cannot have escaped the attention of many readers in the...