Smith, Chris, Sharon S. Oselin, and Taylor Domingos*. (Forthcoming). “Legal Changes and the Decline of Sex Work Arrests in Toronto Neighborhoods, 1992–2020.” Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice.

Abstract
In recent decades, sex work in Canada has faced legal changes with efforts to enhance the criminalization of buyers and court challenges to uphold sex workers’ human rights. What are the consequences of these legal changes and challenges on the streets of Toronto where sex work and its enforcement have also changed? Leveraging an intersectional framework with annual data on Toronto police recorded sex work occurrences and census data from 1992 to 2020 (29 years, 579 tracts, n=16,791), we spatially and longitudinally analyze neighborhood counts of sex work arrests and their relationship to sex work policies and neighborhood effects. Our results show that (1) the policing of sex work in Toronto has dropped by 99.6 percent in the past 30 years, (2) neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage increases neighborhood arrests, (3) criminalizing policies that target buyers increase neighborhood arrests, and (4) the Supreme Court decision upholding sex workers’ human rights briefly decreased neighborhood arrests. Our study raises policy implications as to why laws do not do more to protect sex workers when it appears that arrests have become a low priority for police. Rather than criminalization, laws could prioritize harm reduction, especially for Toronto’s most marginalized sex workers and clients.

Harari, Lexi, Chris Smith, Taylor Domingos*, Sharon S. Oselin, and Emily Hammond*. (forthcoming). “Gendered Vice Complaints: 911 Calls Reporting Sex Work in Chicago Neighborhoods, 2017-2020.” Feminist Criminology.

Abstract
Urban communities use 911 to demand “quality-of-life” police responses and control neighborhood “disorder.” Less is known about the neighborhoods calling 911 to report sex work perceived as disorderly. We investigate the frequency and spatiality of 911 calls reporting sex work across Chicago census tracts relative to arrests and model the relationships between these and neighborhood characteristics. We find that 911 calls spread across Chicago with moderate clustering, but the highest social control of sex work occurs in the West Side. Increased 911 calls come from gentrifying, commercial, and Black neighborhoods, but socioeconomic disadvantage has the largest increase on vice complaints.

Oselin, Sharon S., Katie Hail-Jares, and Melanie Kushida*. 2022. “Different Strolls, Different Worlds? Gentrification and its Impact on Outdoor Sex Work.” Social Problems 69(1): 282–298.

Abstract
Research reveals mixed findings regarding gentrification’s effects on longtime residents and legal small businesses. There is only minimal examination of the ways in which urban redevelopment impacts illicit outdoor marketplaces, and the studies that do rarely employ a comparative analysis or focus on individual perceptions regarding such changes. Using the case of street-based sex work, this study illuminates how workers in the outdoor trade assess changing work conditions and establishes that such evaluations color workers’ decision-making. We draw on interviews with 51 sex workers of color who are familiar with two divergent sex work “strolls” in Washington, DC. Our findings suggest that participants perceive gentrification as a multifaceted phenomenon that reconfigures their work by altering social support, environmental conditions, and competition, changes which ultimately inform where they ply their trade. This research shows that individuals in illicit outdoor markets consider the ramifications of urban redevelopment on their work and make strategic decisions that have implications for their emotional, physical, and financial well-being.

*graduate student