A main point of contention in the policy areas of prostitution and sex trafficking is whether the purchase of sex should be criminalised, whether fully (in all circumstances) or partly (only under specific circumstances). Particularly, Europe has seen several countries either fully criminalise buying sex or insofar as the person in prostitution is subject to exploitation or coercion. An example of the latter, since 2010, it is an offence in England and Wales (UK) to buy sex with a person in prostitution who has been coerced or exploited by a third party. While the offence was heavily debated before it was adopted, there has been little empirical research on its implementation, particularly by police who are on the front line of implementation. While police statistics on the offence are of questionable reliability, indications are that there has been little application of the offence. This paper explores several potential reasons for this in the context of interviews with 10 police representatives in four areas of England. Factors such as police’s knowledge and awareness of the offence, difficulties with its application, and to what extent and in what way policing of prostitution and trafficking for sexual exploitation are taking place, may all be playing a role, but do not explain lack of use in all of the areas examined in this research. The notions that there are not enough victims for the law to be applied or that police may be resisting applying the offence because they find the strict liability element of the offence unfair were not supported by these interviews. This research is unique in finding that there may be an issue with police misunderstanding fundamental elements of the offence and what seems to be a lack of awareness of the offence. These findings have implications for the assessment of the enforceability of this and similar offences and policy discussions around such offences.

中文翻译：

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警方在英格兰和威尔士实施部分性购买禁令

卖淫和性交易政策领域的一个主要争论点是是否应将购买性行为全部（在所有情况下）或部分（仅在特定情况下）定为刑事犯罪。特别是，欧洲已经看到一些国家将买性或卖淫者受到剥削或胁迫的行为完全定为刑事犯罪。后者的一个例子是，自 2010 年以来，在英格兰和威尔士（英国），与被第三方胁迫或剥削的卖淫者发生性交易是一种犯罪行为。虽然该罪行在被采纳之前引起了激烈的争论，但对其实施的实证研究却很少，尤其是对处于实施第一线的警察进行的研究。虽然警方关于犯罪的统计数据的可靠性值得怀疑，有迹象表明，该罪行很少适用。本文通过对英格兰四个地区的 10 名警察代表的采访，探讨了造成这种情况的几个潜在原因。警方对犯罪的了解和认识、实施的困难以及对卖淫和以性剥削为目的的贩运进行监管的程度和方式等因素都可能发挥作用，但不能解释没有使用在本研究中考察的所有领域。这些采访不支持没有足够的受害者来适用法律或警方可能因为他们认为该罪行的严格责任要素不公平而拒绝适用该罪行的观点。这项研究的独特之处在于发现警方可能误解了犯罪的基本要素以及似乎缺乏对犯罪的认识。这些调查结果对评估此类犯罪和类似犯罪的可执行性以及围绕此类犯罪的政策讨论具有重要意义。