Prostitution has always fascinated the public and bewildered policy makers. Reframing Prostitution explores several aspects of this multidimensional phenomenon, examining different ways in which prostitution is and was being practised in different places and different times, best practices in the regulation of prostitution as well as wider social and psychological issues, such as the construction of prostitution as incivility or of prostitutes as a socially problematic group or as victimised individuals. The book also addresses normative questions with respect to policy making, unmasking the purposes behind certain societal reactions towards prostitution as well as proposing innovative solutions that could reconcile societal fears of exploitation and abuse while meeting the rights and needs of individuals voluntarily involved in prostitution.

With contributions across social science disciplines, this international collection presents a valuable discussion on the importance of empirical studies in various segments of prostitution, highlights social contexts around it and challenges regulatory responses that frame our thinking about prostitution, promoting fresh debate about future policy directions in this area.

Prof. dr. Gert Vermeulen is full professor of international and European criminal law and department chair criminal law and criminology at Ghent University, director of the Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP) and extraordinary professor of evidence at Maastricht University.

Nina Peršak is research professor in the area of criminology and sociology of law, Institute for International Research on Criminal Policy (IRCP), Faculty of Law, Ghent University.

Police forces worldwide employ a large number of police detectives who are responsible for criminal investigations. Their work depends on the investigative interviewing of suspects, victims and witnesses, including children and other vulnerable people. For years the principle of ‘learning by doing’ was used and, instead of specialised training programmes, interviewers were merely trained by observing older and more experienced colleagues.

Today however we believe that special attention to training and education is obligatory as investigative interviewing is a specialism rather than a general police skill that anyone can easily apply. Police interviewing is a very important and specialised technique that requires efficient training including a great deal of supervised practice in both educational and real-life settings.

Based on an empirical study this book explains how two newly developed training methods, individual coaching and one-day group training, can be used to optimise daily police interview practices by coaching interviewers at work. Coaching police interviewers gives them the opportunity to acquire insight into their personal interview strengths and weaknesses. Consequently developing personal awareness will help to optimise the interview practices of individual police officers by instilling a process of self-reflection and giving the interviewers insight into how to use certain techniques.

Working with interview coaches also has the advantage that police interviewers can not only reflect on their personal practice, but they also can seek advice and guidance when preparing for and conducting complex interviews. On this level coaching is more focused on the content of the case than on interpersonal capacities – which will increase job satisfaction and can prevent tunnel vision when working on a criminal case.

Our main findings are that 52% of individually coached interviewers further developed their personal interview competences significantly, and 17% of the interviewers who received only a one-day group coaching session with their peers, showed progress after seven months on four of the five main interview competences measured by the Police Interview Competency Inventory.Based on the principles of coaching, a new way of policing will be explained when describing the two newly developed training methods, a way that will change the practical organisation of criminal investigations for good and will enhance the quality of investigative interviews.

This book is unique as no previous studies have ever empirically tested the learning effect of applying competency management and coaching as we know it from the world of trade and industry to a police interview training context.