NCJ Number
100406
Journal
Canadian Journal of Criminology Volume: 28 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1986) Pages: 1-16
Date Published
1986
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the recent history of street prostitution in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, concludes that a revision of the current law regarding soliciting would not affect the location of street prostitution.
Abstract
The soliciting law was introduced in 1972. The court decision in R. v. Hutt in 1978 narrowed the definition of soliciting to include only pressing and persistent behavior by a prostitute when approaching a potential customer in a public place. The reduction in the numbers of soliciting cases after 1978 did not result from this decision, however. Factors influencing police decisions regarding the enforcement of the law and undercover investigations of clubs that were centers of soliciting may have included efforts to regulate heroin traffic, responses to media coverage of the issue of prostitution, and organizational politics. The Hutt decision did not have a significant impact on the location of street prostitution; at most it consolidated a pattern that at most it consolidated a pattern that was well established. Restoring the previous interpretation of the soliciting law is unlikely to control the street prostitution trade in Vancouver. 35 reference notes.