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Book Review: Criminalising the Purchase of Sex: Lessons from Sweden

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Date01 April 2016
Published date01 April 2016
AuthorMatthew Weait
DOI10.1177/0964663916637717a
Subject MatterBook Reviews
SLS637717 249..258 252
Social & Legal Studies 25(2)
JAY LEVY, Criminalising the Purchase of Sex: Lessons from Sweden. Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New
York, NY: Routledge, 2015, pp. 254, ISBN 9780415739320, £90.00 (hbk).
In the popular imagination, especially in the imagination of those committed to the
promise of progressive politics, Sweden represents the realization of the utopian ideal:
a country with (until recently) a long tradition of stable social democratic government
that has not only taken active steps through fiscal measures to redistribute national
wealth but pursued the goals of egalitarianism in its social policy. Whilst it is true that
Sweden remains one of the world’s wealthier countries, with an enviable quality of life
for many, this imagined Sweden is – and to a greater or lesser extent always has been –
somewhat different from the reality. According to recent statistics, the growth in income
inequality from 1985 to the early 2010s in Sweden has been the largest of all Organi-
zation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (increasing by almost
one-third), and tensions resulting from increased immigration have resulted in protest,
unrest and a rise in the popularity of far-right groups and parties. It is, of course, possible
to find similar trends in other countries; but somehow the fact that this is happening in
Sweden (or Even in Sweden, as Allan Pred entitled his masterly book on racism and
racialized space) causes confusion and consternation.
Dr Jay Levy has written a book that will further confound the simplistic understanding
of Sweden that those not expert in its culture and history adhere to. In it he provides a
devastating critique of its legal approach to the regulation of prostitution – an approach
that has become known, appropriately enough, as the Swedish Model. Put very simply,
this approach is one that criminalizes clients with the explicit aim of eradicating pros-
titution from Swedish society. (The term prostitution is used both in the book and in this
...

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