Knowledge of Evil

by Alyson Brown, David Barrett

Overview

This book aims to document and analyse the enduring involvement of children in the commercial sex trade in twentieth-century England. It uncovers new evidence to indicate the extent of under-age prostitution over this period, a much-neglected subject despite the increased visibility of children more generally.

The authors argue that child prostitution needs to be understood within a broader context of child abuse, and that this provides one of the clearest manifestations of the way in which 'deviant groups' can be conceived of as both victims and threats. The picture of child prostitution which emerges is one of exclusion from mainstream society and the law, and remoteness from the agencies set up to help young people in trouble, which were often reluctant to accept the realities of child prostitution. The evidence provided in this book indicates that the circumstances which have led young people into prostitution over the last hundred years amount, at worst, to physical or psychological abuse or neglect, and at best as the result of limited choice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134033188
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/11/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Alyson Brown is a Reader in History at Edge Hill University. She has published numerous chapters and articles, including 'The Amazing Mutiny at the Dartmoor Convice Prison' in the British Journal of Criminology (2007).

David Barrett is Professor of Applied Social Studies in the School of Applied Social Science, Bedfordshire University. He is an international authority on young people who are sexually exploited through the sex industry.

Table of Contents

Foreword 1. Introduction - concepts and contexts 2. Debating nineteenth-century child prostitution 3. Edwardian England and the ideal family 4. War and the 1920s 5. Prostitution, child abuse and feminism during the 1920s and 1930s 6. Reconstruction and a new society 7. The rediscovery of child prostitution during the 1960s and 1970s 8. Child prostitution during the 1980s and 1990s

Editorial Reviews

Brown (criminology and social history, U. of Luton, UK) and Barrett (health care and social science, U. of Luton, UK) document the ongoing history of child prostitution in England over the past 100 years and explore the socio-economic and policy contexts in which it occurs. One of their purposes is to examine the negative presumptions and judgments made about children involved in prostitution. They argue that child prostitution must be seen as a form of child abuse and that any definition of the problem must incorporate understandings of the rights and development of the child. Furthermore, the phenomenon cannot be separated from class, gender, and social divisions and is more dependent on these factors than any so-called "moral decline." Distributed by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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