The increasing illegality of so many aspects of prostitution and related activities meant that police had more control over what prostitutes did and where they worked. In Western Australia this power was used by the police, in collusion with magistrates, medical authorities and local governments, to establish red-light districts in major population centres such as Perth and Kalgoorlie. The breadth and flexibility provided for by the vagrancy laws meant that police could virtually dictate the behaviour of prostitutes and brothel-keepers on pain of imprisonment. While this policy meant severe infringements on the ability of sex workers to choose the location of their workplaces, it also had ramifications for the structure of the sex industry. Before the policy of localisation (ie: up to about 1915) it was possible to be a freelance prostitute, operating as a streetwalker or independently in a house or flat. With the advent of the Hay Street brothels in Kalgoorlie and those of Roe Street in Perth, it became increasingly difficult for women to operate outside the tolerated brothels. In order to escape police harassment women had to become either brothel inmates or keepers. While this meant big profits for the few who became keepers, for the majority of sex workers the change spelt a 'proletariatisation' of their occupation as they gave up self-employment for the position of brothel employees, handing over half their earnings to the madam (Davidson, 1980). Police ensured that organised criminals were kept away from the tolerated brothels by using the vagrancy provisions against 'bludgers' to deter any men other than customers from associating with the inmates.
A similar process of proletariatisation occurred in New South Wales over the same period, although it took a different form. Hilary Golder and Judith Allen (1979-80) describe how the increased police powers encouraged corruption in the police force, with individual officers accepting bribes to administer the law selectively. Organised criminal gangs, already in existence to control the gambling industry as well as the opium and illicit liquor traffic, seized this opportunity to extract protection money from freelance prostitutes, brothel-keepers and individual pimps, since they were the only ones with enough capital to pay either the police or the new heavy fines. Increasingly, sex-workers were forced to relinquish their former independence for the dubious protection of criminal networks. As Golder and Allen (1979-80, p.19) argue, this meant that
... the individual lost control over when, for how long, with whom and for what amount or kind of payment she worked. Her work could be deployed and incorporated into the service context of the drug, liquor or gambling traffic, whether she liked it or not. Increasingly she could be pushed into positions of risk, both as regards rival underworld gangs and the agents of the state. And where pimps survived, they tended to survive as employees of the criminal interests and acted in a managerial or supervisory capacity.
The changes to the New South Wales Summary Offences Act in 1908 thus provided the structural preconditions for the rise of the rival 'gang queens', Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh, who dominated Sydney prostitution from the 1920s to the 1940s.
The changes which occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries set the framework for the operation of prostitution for most of the twentieth century. Only since the late 1970s have governments started experimenting with new ways of treating prostitution, generally moving towards less punitive models of legislation. These changes reflect changes in public attitudes towards sexual relations between consenting adults generally and a greater awareness of the deficiencies and injustices embodied in the previous approach. The evolution of new approaches is an ongoing process and the end of the twentieth century promises to be another crucial period in the history of Australian prostitution as state governments and local councils grapple with the various civil rights, health and planning issues associated with prostitution (Gerull and Halstead, 1992). What is certain is that we will continue to see 'the State' behaving in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. Different levels of government (federal, state, local) have different priorities and responsibilities and these are not always compatible. Likewise, different state agencies (eg: police, child welfare, health, prisons, military) have different agendas which sometimes coincide but at other times work in opposition to each other.
