"Prostitution was rife in the cities of Victorian Britain. Focusing on the ports, dockyards and garrison towns of Kent, this study examines the social and economic factors that could cause a woman to turn to prostitution, and how such women were policed. Lee argues that a wider degree of heterogeneity existed among women involved in prostitution than has previously been presented, and that in Kent in particular the impact of the controversial Contagious Diseases Acts was less uniform than has been thought. She demonstrates that nineteenth-century prostitution is best understood as part of the wider context of policing and urban control."--Publisher's description.