The 1839 Metropolitan Police Act states that any common prostitute, loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution to the annoyance of inhabitants or passengers was liable to a fine. If they couldn't pay the fine, they were liable to imprisonment. This law required required that the woman arrested be a 'common prostitute', and that the arresting officer be able to prove that she was 'annoying' someone. Neither 'prostitute' nor 'annoyance' were defined. Police evidence was taken by most magistrates to be sufficient proof that the woman was annoying someone. Women would often plead guilty because the fine wasn't high, and she knew she little chance if she pled not guilty. This was how the system worked in the late 19th century: being on a woman on the street after dark, conversing with men, was evidence of being a common prostitute.

The 1870s and 1880s saw the opening of cultural, shopping and entertainment hubs with urban, middle class, respectable women encouraged to come into the West End to shop, go to music halls and the theatre. Women started to appear in public in an unprecedented way. This led to difficulties in policing prostitution: separating respectable from unrespectable women. Policing amounted to a de facto form of regulation, a legally required stigma. Police would observe a woman in public, note her description and movements over the course of one evening, decide she was soliciting before arresting her. They used their own notes to prove solicitation in police courts. As soon as she's successfully charged and found guilty for the first time, her name and description was kept on an unofficial police register. Despite not being official registers, they still exist in the archives. The woman who was labeled a prostitute was then liable to arrest anytime she was public, even though being a prostitute was not illegal. This is how the early 20th century saw major crackdowns on street solicitation. Early 20th century feminists were horrified at this system and spoke out against it. Mary Gordon was the very first female inspector of women's prisons. She was an outspoken, outspoken advocate for repealing solicitation laws, and she saw them as utterly unconstitutional.

Street solicitation did not go away. Police reported that crack downs in one area pushed it into another. Soho become an informal red light district, while formally the West End was popular. The crusade against street solicitation saw the average woman enter into an endless cycle of solicitation, arrest, fine, solicitation, and arrest again. Many women saw this as an informal taxation system. Crackdowns also lead to more furtive solicitation. In the historical records, both police and women talked about how they were quicker to go with clients, there was less time to chat and screen clients as a group. They were constantly being moved on by the police. Negotiation had to happen quickly, and they couldn't be seen walking with another woman. This was the situation any women look continued to live with throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Gordon's quote reads:

"The common prostitute, by being something which it is not an offence to be, can commit offences which other women cannot commit, and can be brought to courts without the testimony of any annoyed person, and sent to prison on the witness of the police. But how does a woman become a common prostitute? She becomes one by the simple process of the policeman moving her on, probably telling her she is one, warning her he will arrest her, and finally arresting her, swearing in court she is one, and that she has loitered with the intention of soliciting, or that he has seen her soliciting. After that she is eligible for punishment, and takes her place in the ranks of 'common prostitutes'."