Not getting away with it: Linking sex work and hate crime in Merseyside

In 2006 Merseyside Police were the first UK force to treat crimes against sex workers as hate crime. This chapter overviews the factors that led to that approach and its key constituent elements, drawing on the authors experience of managing the sex work project in Liverpool and her PhD research. It describes how the inclusion of sex workers in hate crime policy has advantages for a group who have been relatively unprotected by law and policy from victimisation, including successful prosecutions of offenders who have committed crimes against sex workers. It argues that locating crimes against sex workers as hate crime links conceptualisation of hate with established analyses in the sex work literature associating high levels of victimisation of sex workers to processes of ‘othering’. It suggests that sex workers experiences of targeted victimisation illustrate the complexities of hate crime and the need for an inclusive hate crime framework.