Criminalizing Clients Only: the Hot New Anti-Prostitution Strategy That Works About as Well as the Old Strategy

In the United States and around the world, it’s
becoming increasingly popular for police to fight prostitution by
going after clients. This tack—often referred to as
“the
Nordic model“—is supposedly more progressive than targeting sex
workers themselves. 

A
study published this week by medical journal BMJ
explores how the criminalization of sex buyers affects the safety
and working conditions of sex workers. Researchers from the
University of British Columbia and the Gender and
Sexual Health Initiative interviewed 31 street-based sex
workers in Vancouver, Canada, where policies that criminalize
clients were adopted by local law enforcement in January
2013. 

While police “sustained a high level of visibility,” they eased
charging or arresting sex workers and showed increased concern for
their safety, according to the interviews.

However, participants’ accounts and police statistics indicated
continued police enforcement of clients. This profoundly impacted
the safety strategies sex workers employed. Sex workers continued
to mistrust police, had to rush screening clients and were
displaced to outlying areas with increased risks of violence,
including being forced to engage in unprotected sex.

Whether cops are arresting sex buyers or sellers makes little
difference—it still drives the practice underground and makes it
more dangerous for those engaged. Researchers concluded that
“criminalization and policing strategies that target clients
reproduce the harms created by the criminalization of sex work, in
particular, vulnerability to violence and HIV/STIs.”

Targeting johns, buyers of sex, also increased the total number
of sex-work-related arrests in Vancouver, from 47 in 2012 to 71 in
2013. 

The BMJ study comes as
Canada is debating whether to adopt the Nordic Model. In
December 2013, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that laws
prohibiting brothels and prostitution were
unconstitutional, giving the parliament 12 months to rewrite
them. Canadian Justice Minister Peter MacKay is expected to release
a new prostitution bill today, patterned on practices in Sweden,
Iceland, and Norway. In those countries, selling sexual services is
legal but purchasing them is not. 

It’s not much of a model to emulate. “Evidence from Sweden,
Norway, and now Vancouver confirms that criminalizing clients does
not eliminate the sex industry but has a significant negative
impact (on) sex workers,” said University
of Ottawa criminology professor Chris Bruckert. 

Yet it’s not just Canada looking to get Scandinavian with its
sex work laws. Cities and states across the U.S.—including
Boston,
St. Louis, and
New Jersey—have been planning and testing out similar
strategies and touting it as progress.