Police Enforcement of Street Prostitution as a Quality-of-Life Offense: New York City, United States, and Frankfurt am Main, Germany

ABSTRACT

The present paper compares how police in Hunts Point, South Bronx, New York City and Frankfurt am Main Germany manage street prostitution as a quality-of-life offense. Methods utilized for this research include observation and “conversation” in public spaces with prostitutes, police, and community members. This paper deals with characteristics of street prostitutes, police enforcement, actual interaction between police and street actors, and impact of these methods on prostitutes. For decades, broken windows policing has been utilized to counter quality-of-life offenses in urban neighborhoods such as NYC, and evidence regarding its effectiveness has often been questioned. In attempts to address prostitution, two variant policing models were identified and examined through the framework of broken windows theory: Punitive/Criminalization Policing and Containment/Laissez-Faire Policing. Broken windows policing probably lowered the incidence of quality-of-life offenses including street prostitution. However, broken windows theory does not take into account socially constructed myths that persist about prostitution, nor the realities that counter them. This paper addresses these myths and how they may inform policing practices, resulting in negative corollary effects which must be eliminated.

KEYWORDS:

• Police-Prostitute Interaction
• Ethnometrics
• Broken Windows
• Punitive-Criminalization Policing
• Containment-Liaises-Faire Policing

Acknoledgments

Tiffany Cheng contributed substantially to the literature review and data tabulations that appear in this article. Christiane Bernard provided significant background information and insights related to street deviance for Frankfurt, Germany. Special appreciation to Sadia Reza for valuable assistance on reshaping the final phase of this project. My gratitude to Sydney Beveridge for excellence in editing. I owe a debt of gratitude to the street actors, police officers, and community members who made this study a reality.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bernard Cohen

Dr. Cohen is a Professor in Sociology and Criminology at Queens College, City University of New York, and served on the faculty at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Dr. Cohen currently is directing a comparative cross-cultural, global research project analyzing police response to quality-of-life offenses in New York City, Los Angeles, and Frankfurt, Germany. Several publications emerged from this project including Police Enforcement of Quality-of-Life Offending: A Critique, in Advances in Criminological Theory, Vol. 8: The Criminology of Criminal Law, edited by W. Laufer & Freda Adler, New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1999 and Civil Order Crime in Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment, edited by David Levinson, Massachusetts: Berkshire Publishing Co. 2002. Dr. Cohen received an M.A. and Ph.D. degree in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, joined the staff of the Rand Corporation, was Director of Police Personnel Research and authored or co-authored four books and numerous monographs and articles on the police and criminal justice system.