Jim Paxton

A highly visible police presence, typically with extra uniformed officers, is intended to discourage area street prostitution. Extra police presence is expensive, of course, and is effective only if the police follow it up with more permanent strategies. It can also create the perception that the area is unsafe. Alternative methods to establish a police presence are to open a police station (e.g., a storefront office, mobile office or kiosk) in the area, or affix antiprostitution warning signs to police vehicles patrolling the area. Private security forces might also be deployed to supplement a police presence.

Sweeps are large-scale arrest campaigns targeting suspected prostitutes without the intent to prosecute. Sweeps have long been a police strategy to control street prostitution, particularly when they have had few legal alternatives for dealing with the problem, yet have been pressured to do something about it. There is little evidence that sweeps are anything other than temporarily effective at removing prostitutes from the street, and they do considerable harm to the integrity of the criminal justice system. It is not uncommon for police to arrest innocent people during sweeps.