The turbulent socio-economic environment in Edinburgh and Glasgow during the early twentieth century, especially the renegotiation of women's role in the public sphere and changes in technology and entertainment, greatly influenced the organisation of prostitution and the experiences of those involved. The policing of prostitution was also influenced by these wider social changes, but the introduction of probation also meant that many aspects of the nineteenth-century ‘Glasgow System’ that had relied on the informal cooperation between the law and voluntary organisations became integrated into official policy. Whilst the treatment of women under this twentieth-century penal-welfare system was arguably less repressive than under the nineteenth-century system, the focus on reforming women according to middle-class standards of respectable femininity remained constant. By exploring the experiences of the women who sold sex, this book has found that whilst abuse, exploitation and poverty affected many of the women involved in prostitution, they also found numerous ways to negotiate the challenges posed by the individuals and institutions that attempted to control or exploit them. The conclusions that can be drawn from this research about the effectiveness of various policies and the influence they had on the lives of women is particularly relevant to current debates concerning the merits and drawbacks of the decriminalisation and legalisation of prostitution. This final chapter will bring these various themes together and explore how this historical research can help inform current debates about prostitution.

Rather than prostitution becoming increasingly criminalised during the early twentieth century, as was the case in London, this research has shown that there was no strong demand or support for a sustained ‘crackdown’ on prostitution in Edinburgh and Glasgow prior to the Second World War. On the contrary, the police's response was often apathetic, seeing prostitution as a moral issue for the concern of the Kirk and conscience, rather than a matter for the police. Women apprehended for soliciting were often allowed to leave with only a caution, or they were given fines and short prison sentences. Enthusiasm for increased criminalisation was shown only during short-lived moments of enhanced public concern, and often only in relation to ‘brothel-keepers’ and ‘pimps’. These characters were viewed with particular disgust because of their perceived exploitation and abuse of vulnerable women.