How crime-based legal regimes shape sexual harm: Sex work, consent and vulnerability

Abstract Crime-based and carceral legal regimes shape sexual harm by structuring how consent is negotiated, enforced and recognized. Using a social harm framework, this study examines sex work not as an exceptional case but as a critical site for analysing how crime-based governance operates through the interaction of sex work law and sexual violence law to structure vulnerability and access to justice. Drawing on survey data from 483 sex workers and former sex workers and 41 interviews across four legal regimes—criminalization (United States), partial criminalization (Great Britain), legalization (Nevada) and decriminalization (Aotearoa New Zealand)—we analyse negotiations of conditional and dynamic consent. We show that criminalized and partially criminalized regimes do not merely fail to prevent harm; they actively produce it by restricting communication, collective safety and legal redress. Common violations, particularly stealthing and non-payment, are widespread yet routinely misrecognized as legally actionable harm. Decriminalization improves risk management, recognition and access to redress but does not eliminate harm due to enduring limits of crime-based sexual violence law. These findings show how carceral governance narrows legally recognizable harm and shifts responsibility for safety onto individuals.