Part of Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 4:30 pm on 16 October 2007.
Christine Lawrie: It is interesting. That takes me back to being a probation officer 25 or 30 years ago. Then it was reasonably common for prostitutes to be placed on short probation orders for about six months if fines had not worked. My experience of those days is that such a measure had very little impact on them at all. However, times have moved on. We know that there are a lot of young women, as you just described, who are dependent on prostitution because of their drug habit, and there may be quite a lot of coercion behind that. My feeling is that the sessions are generally a good thing. We want to bring those women into contact with somebody who could offer them some help. In the course of doing that, you will pick up a lot of women who choose to be prostitutes and do not want to be helped. That is their lifestyle choice. However, if you can start to reach women who are afraid, need help and do not know how to get it, then that would be a good thing.