Street prostitution

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A street prostitute talking to a potential customer in Torino, Italy, 2005

Street prostitution is a specific form of prostitution in which the sex worker operates from the street. The street prostitute typically solicits customers while waiting at street corners or walking alongside a street, often dressed in a provocative manner. The sex act may be performed in the customer's car or in a nearby secluded street location, or at the prostitute's apartment or in a rented room.

Legality

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Street prostitution or actions closely associated with street prostitution are generally illegal. However, some countries have decriminalized street prostitution, usually in restricted areas known as tolerance zones (Netherlands and Germany for example). In New South Wales, Australia it is not illegal to solicit on the street (as long as it does not happen in residential areas or near schools and churches).

Street prostitution is often illegal even in jurisdictions which allow other forms of prostitution. In jurisdictions where prostitution itself is not illegal, such as in Canada or the UK, it can be an offense to attempt to procure the services of a prostitute (or in the case of the prostitute, to attempt to gain a customer) in a public place. This offence is usually known as solicitation. Some jurisdiction also outlaw kerb crawling, slowly driving around with the intent to procure the services of a prostitute.

Risks and research

Artist's conception of a street prostitute speaking with a prospective customer in his car.

Street prostitutes are extremely vulnerable to physical and sexual assaults, as well as to muggings, by clients, pimps and the police. In addition, women working on streets have to pay about 90% or even more of their earnings to their pimps^[1]. Otherwise they probably will be punished. Melissa Farley's study of 854 prostitutes in nine countries, including America, found that 95% of women had been physically assaulted, and 75% had been raped. 89% of the women interviewed stating that they wanted to leave prostitution. However, many people in prostitution are unable to leave either because they are under the control of a third party (e.g. a pimp, or a controlling partner or family member), or because they are economically vulnerable and unable to earn enough money another way. For example, they may have a drug addiction, or be supporting their family.

One New York study indicated 87% are homeless or unstably housed. Drug use is prevalent. Some street prostitutes become sex workers as a result of being too uneducated to get or keep traditional employment. The current trend when sentencing prostitutes in the United States is to try to educate them while they are in prison.^[2]

In a 2008 study of Chicago street prostitutes, economists Steven D. Levitt and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh found that women working without pimps work for an average hourly rate of about $25, and those working with pimps make 50% more. This is roughly four times the wage of other jobs available to them. Condoms are rarely used. Prostitutes are arrested once for every 450 tricks, and every tenth arrest results in jail time. Once every 30 tricks, a prostitute gives free sex to an on-duty police officer to avoid arrest.^[3]

Street prostitutes are also frequently targeted by serial killers because they routinely enter an unknown man's car, try to not bring attention to themselves or their clients, and may go missing for days and weeks before anyone notices. The most famous examples of this type of serial killings include Jack the Ripper, Gary Ridgway, The Hillside Stranglers, Arthur Shawcross, and Robert Pickton.

Sources

External links

• Street prostitution by Michael S. Scott, US DOJ Problem-Oriented Guides for Police Series, No. 2 (PDF file)
• StreetWomen.org Website documenting lives of women involved in street prostitution.