Open Letter: To Home Secretary – Abolish “Prostitute’s Cautions”

Dear Home Secretary,

We are writing to ask that you take action to abolish ‘prostitute’s cautions’ which trap women in sex work, prevent them from leaving abusive and violent relationships, and push them further into poverty.

‘Prostitute’s cautions’ are cautions that the police can give to women whom they believe are loitering or soliciting as sex workers. Unlike other criminal cautions sex workers don’t have to admit guilt and may not even be informed that they have received one. They are used against street sex workers who face the greatest need, the most dangerous working conditions and the harshest and most punitive policing.

Thousands of women in the UK have received a ‘prostitute’s caution’. For example, at least 800 were given out in the West Midlands, over a two-year period.

There is no right of appeal against a ‘prostitute’s caution’ and they remain on a person’s record until the age of 100. There can be no justification for this unjust and draconian practice continuing.

In November 2024, the English Collective of Prostitutes launched a report in Parliament:  Proceed Without Caution: The Impact of ‘‘prostitute’s cautions’’ and Convictions on Sex Workers’ lives.

The report documented that ‘prostitute’s cautions’ have a devastating and lifelong impact on women’s lives. They put women at greater risk of exploitation and violence, and they can mean that sex workers lose custody of their children, are denied compensation and/or insurance and are deported or prevented from travelling. Having a ‘prostitute’s caution’ on your record is an immense barrier to getting another job and leaving prostitution. The impact of a ‘prostitute’s caution’ is compounded for sex workers who are migrant, trans, women of colour, street workers and working class. Victims of rape, trafficking and other violence are deterred from reporting these crimes to the police by the threat of prosecution and of ending up with a “prostitute’s caution” on their record.

At the launch of the report in Parliament, one woman testified:

“At the age of 25, seven years into the industry, I tried to leave. I had three kids to feed and looked for a job in an office, but they did a DBS check and the cautions and convictions came up. So, I didn’t get the job. I had to carry on with prostitution.”

Another woman said:

“Cautions like mine don’t just affect the adults who receive the caution, they affect their children. It made me a lot more compliant about allowing my son to be in contact with my ex-partner who was a dangerous man, because he knew I was [sex] working and I thought he would bring it up and I was so petrified of my children being taken away.”

There are widespread calls to end ‘prostitute’s cautions’, including in Parliament, in the House of Lords and in the London Assembly.

Anger about the injustice of ‘prostitute’s cautions’ is helping highlight the injustice of the criminalisation of sex workers generally – whether working on the street or together from premises. Women are forced to choose between keeping themselves safe and possible arrest, or avoiding a criminal record and putting themselves in danger.

Research confirms that criminalisation undermines safety: sex workers won’t come forward and report attacks for fear of being arrested themselves. One survey found that where arrests of sex workers and clients are high, only 5% of sex workers who experienced violence reported it to the police.

Sex workers are mostly mothers working to support themselves and their children. Policies like the two-child limit, the benefit cap and benefit sanctions are proven to make women and children poorer. The Work and Pensions Committee found a direct link between the move to Universal Credit and an increase in “survival sex”.

Sex workers, like other women, want the power to refuse and escape from exploitation and violence. This is much harder to do if you are living hand to mouth and have children to feed and clothe. The most effective remedy to the harm caused to sex workers by criminalisation is the full decriminalisation of sex work, and ending women’s poverty.

We ask that you take urgent action to implement our demands:  abolish ‘prostitute’s cautions’; expunge criminal records which trap women in prostitution; and target resources at sex workers to allow women to leave prostitution if and when they want. Women whose lives are being devastated by this injustice cannot wait any longer.

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Issued by:

English Collective of Prostitutes

And: