Policing Prostitution, 1856–1886:
Deviance, Surveillance and Morality
Catherine Lee
Perspectives in Economic and Social History
978 1 84893 274 6: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 84893 275 3
Prostitution was rife in the cities of Victorian Britain. Focusing on the ports, dockyards and garrison towns of Kent, this study examines the social and economic factors that could cause a woman to turn to prostitution, and how such women were policed. Lee argues that a wider degree of heterogeneity existed among women involved in prostitution than has previously been presented, and that in Kent in particular the impact of the controversial Contagious Diseases Acts was less uniform than has been thought. She demonstrates that nineteenth-century prostitution is best understood as part of the wider context of policing and urban control.
Readership
Nineteenth-Century History, Victorian Society, History of Medicine, Women's Studies and Law
Contents
Introduction: The Local Scene
1 Prostitution, Poverty and the Economy of Makeshifts
2 Lifestyle and Life Cycle
3 Policing Prostitution
4 Geographies of Prostitution
5 Representations of Prostitution
6 The Contagious Diseases Acts in Kent