This book explores the impacts exacted by criminalization on the lives of women involved in sex work in the U.S., Canada, and China - three countries that criminally punish most forms of sex work. Criminalization exacts a set of negative totalizing effects on sex workers throughout the world through a process elsewhere articulated as the exclusionary regime, a dense coalescence of punitive forces which involves both governance in the form of the criminal justice system and engagement with the courts and other state agents, and regular patterns of action, including myriad forms of discrimination resulting from stigma. Despite the considerable cultural and economic differences between the US and Canada compared to China, all embrace a philosophical paradigm that positions sex work as inherently harmful to both women who engage in it and society more generally. This perspective conveniently ignores the complex economic and social forces that, for some women, makes sex work the most appealing employment choice from an otherwise constrained menu of options. Analysis presented here demonstrates how well-intentioned law and public policy can have unforeseen consequences, particularly when designed by those ignorant of the realities of sex workers' everyday lives. The existence of an exclusionary regime that eschews evidence-based knowledge in favor of morality-based legislation raises numerous ethical issues for both researchers and society at large.

< The multiple case studies employed will illustrate a single, theoretical theme. In so doing, the book addresses the complex means by which state-endorsed exclusionary practices seem to further entrench the inequalities that shape the lives of many women involved in sex work in North America and China.