Last year’s George Floyd uprisings have not just impacted the United States, but have drawn attention to and inspired calls for police abolition across the world. But why do so many global progressive activists have it out for institutions of law enforcement? And, apart from racial profiling, how do the police negatively impact queer and sex worker communities? In this paper, I argue that police and policing exist on the most conservative end of liberal and neoliberal society, and that social conservatism is bred, in fact, by law enforcement itself. Historically, these institutions seek to police sexual expression through exaggerated claims of the danger of sex work, legal control through sexual and racial profiling, and eventually dominating the lucrative sex trade.
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