This open access book draws on an international research project, using extensive and multiple methods to explore unwanted sexual contact and violence in sex work populations. A project delivered by a large team of sex workers, peer researchers, and academics, and with practitioner input over a four-year period, the central question they explore is: how do social, legal, and judicial contexts shape the safety and well-being of people engaging in sex work? The book compares survey and interview data conducted in 2023 across four different legal environments: legalisation (Nevada, USA), criminalisation (Northern Ireland), decriminalisation (New Zealand) and partial criminalisation (UK). It explores how the interaction between legal consciousness (how people in sex work interpret law, consent, their rights, and how or whether to report), legal norms (legal theory, case rulings, legal codes) and legal practices (what police, lawyers, and judges actually do) affects unwanted contact against sex workers. This book advances understanding of the various layers regulating sexual autonomy for marginalised peoples — the specific factors that impact the negotiation, experiences, and disposition of crimes of sexual violence in different socio-legal contexts.

Teela Sanders is Professor of Criminology and currently Dean for Research and Enterprise for the College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities at the University of Leicester, UK.

Jane Scoular is Professor of Law University of Strathclyde, Scotland, and is an internationally recognised scholar whose work is a primary reference in the field of the legal regulation of commercial sex.  

Barbara G. Brents is Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA.

Susie Balderston was Research Fellow in the Law School at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland.

Gillian Abel is a public health academic at the Department of Population Health, University of Otago, New Zealand with over 20 years’ experience in the field of sex work research.