Phoenix diversion program gives prostitutes the promise of a new beginning
Phoenix’s prostitution-diversion program has weathered legislative threats that could have made it impossible to operate in an era when prostitutes were viewed as a public nui- sance best left to cycle through the criminal-justice system.
The Dignity program, at 16 years old, now serves as a model for programs in other cities around the country where prostitution has come to be viewed as inextricably linked with domestic violence and human trafficking. A governor’s task force recently proposed that other cities should adopt more programs like it.
And so, a week from now, on Oct. 26, Jeanne Allen and dozens of others will take up signs and raise their voices as they march through a known prosti- tution area in Phoenix to try to raise awareness among women living “the life.” The intent is to send a message to the women’s pimps.
For Allen, the march is personal.
She was a destitute, intravenous-drug user who frequently slept near convenience-store dumpsters to save the money she earned from prostitution to support her drug habit. She was arrested in 2005, and she found her way into the Dignity program.
Now free of drugs, with a home, a car, a job and custody of her children, Allen said she thinks of the lessons she learned in the diversion program every day.
“Every step I take today, I believe they were completely instrumental in. I needed to know there is a way out,” said Allen, who participated in her first Dignity walk shortly after completing diversion. “For the first time, holding that sign, I felt I walked with a purpose.
“The way that I’ve gotten from there to here is remembering to not define myself as what I did. I define myself as who I am. What I did is not who I am.”
Program sees results
The program allows suspected prostitutes to avoid prosecution if they complete a 36-hour course that involves counseling and education on topics including sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse and domestic violence.
The participants, who include women and men, also attend weekly support-group meetings and life-skills and abuse classes while making their way through the program, said Martha Perez Loubert, the Phoenix prosecutor’s diversion-program coordinator, who helped found Dignity with Catholic Charities Community Services in 1997.
Local authorities embraced the concept, but there was skepticism in other circles, Loubert said, until she began to see results.
“Vice was just used to picking up these women and throwing them in jail because they’re a nuisance and residents and businesses were complaining,” she said. “We funded the pilot program for100 women. It took over one year and a half for them to complete the program, and that first recidivism study came back at a 31 percent recidivism rate. That is really high for any type of program to have those kinds of numbers.”
They kept improving as the program’s administrators learned more about the needs of the men and women they serve. A 2004 study showed that 26 percent of women who successfully completed the program re-offended with similar charges; a 2008 report showed that 14 percent of the participants re-offended.
The success came at a significant savings to the city, Loubert said, with the1,414 people who have successfully completed diversion saving Phoenix nearly $3.5 million in jail costs alone; each participant was facing a term of 15 days.
Changing mind-set
Allen was well into the cycle of being arrested and continuing to commit crimes when, in 2005, she met two Dignity counselors — former prostitutes and drug addicts — who offered Allen something she hadn’t had in years: hope.
“Every single time I got arrested, I went back to 27th and Van Buren, got drugs and got back on the saddle like there was no tomorrow,” Allen said. “These two women told me they used to walk down Buckeye (Road), got in and out of cars, were beaten and raped. And for the first time, I looked at someone and said, ‘That is me. How is it possible to live the life that I’ve lived and have it be OK? The two don’t go together, but here’s two women telling me they can.’ ”
A year after Allen found the program, legislators drafted a bill that would have ended diversion programs as an alternative to incarceration, but the proposal never went anywhere.
Police in Phoenix were experiencing a transformation of their own around that time. The case of a 15-year-old girl whose pimp kept her locked inside a dog crate forced many vice detectives to change their perspectives on prostitutes, viewing them as potential victims of human trafficking instead of misdemeanor criminals.
That point of view has since taken root in the state’s largest police department, with Phoenix police participating in biannual efforts to target prostitutes with the goal of getting them into the diversion program.
Dignity is a vital step in breaking that cycle, said Phoenix Police Lt. Jim Gallagher, whose work with the department’s vice unit led to an appointment to Gov. Jan Brewer’s Task Force on Human Trafficking. The task force released a report last month with recommendations that included strengthening diversion programs for victims of human trafficking.
“The biggest thing that you have to consider, especially with adult victims of sex trafficking, is there’s always a transition period,” Gallagher said. “We want to get them out of the life and think it will work right away, but in order for that process to work, they have to have consistent support in a nurturing environment.
“The diversion option is probably the best way to get victims into the service-provision pipeline in a way that doesn’t criminalize their victimization.”