Vincentl13: Sp cq current response

Most Departments have used a long-standing practice of cycling through both passive baseline enforcement and periodic, aggressive crackdowns. During a typical week, patrol officers may enforce track clearing by simply directing the workers to leave or writing a low level citation for loitering; it is treated as a neighborhood problem to be managed vs. resolved. When public or political pressures become significant, the Department will shift to "high visibility" enforcement, conducting large-scale undercover sting operations against both workers and customers which result in mass arrests. The Department's cyclical approach has resulted in addressing street prostitution primarily as a public order failure, instead of as an embedded socioeconomic/health issue

Prosecutors have historically treated most instances of prostitution crimes as lower-priority offenses in order to handle them as quickly as possible in an over-burdened municipal court system. Due to limited jail space and the higher priority assigned to violent crime, prosecutors use the plea bargaining system to simply move cases in and out of their court systems by allowing for reduced charges such as minor public nuisance infractions or probation. However, due to the changes that have been occurring in how prosecutors view the parties involved with prostitution crimes (sex workers vs. clients/pimps), prosecutors are beginning to create a distinction in their treatment of each party. In doing so, they are now more likely to dismiss charges filed against sex workers who will participate in diversion programs, whereas they continue to aggressively prosecute clients and pimps using increased fines, vehicle impoundment and required attendance at "john school" educational programs.

Jail sentences are extremely infrequent for most individuals committing their first or second offense. A judge will typically provide an offender with monetary penalties as well as a variety of sanctions such as supervised/unsupervised probation, community service, etc. Judges have come to favor economic penalties as well as require offenders to attend specialized educational classes about human trafficking and exploitation. Most often these types of cases result in court fees and time spent incarcerated while awaiting trial and/or a court order to participate in local substance abuse treatment and counseling.

There is a huge difference in the number of people who complete their sentences. The clients are much more likely to be compliant with their sentence due to the fact that most of them have the money available to immediately pay fines and a strong desire to complete John School so as to avoid having the arrest on their permanent criminal history and hide it from potential employers or family members. The street prostitute's life is marked by systemic barriers which make it nearly impossible for her to comply with the requirements of her sentence. She will very seldom have enough money to pay the court costs associated with the offense; she will live in chaos with unstable housing and will be actively withdrawing from substances at the same time, therefore missing her probation meetings and court appearances, creating an ongoing cycle of bench warrants.

Traditional criminal sentencing is nearly ineffective as a deterrent against street level sex workers. The imposition of a large fine upon an arrestee for street prostitution would create a counterproductive incentive; they will be forced to go out and continue soliciting so that they can generate enough money to pay the fine prior to going on their next "date". In addition, placing a person into a jail cell for several days may disrupt the daily operations of the local trafficking circuit, however; it does nothing to correct either the severe drug dependency issues or the absence of affordable housing which prompted the behavior in the first place. The persons' desperate situation remains unaltered after release from incarceration, and they return to the same survival behaviors.

Officers often engage in situational, informal tactics when they are on patrol as a way of disrupting the drug markets and not filling jail cells. Environmental displacement is one tactic that many street officers utilize; examples include: placing high visibility police barricades around an area, using a cruisers overhead lights to create a lighted parking lot, or working with the city to cut back overgrown vegetation and repair broken streetlights. Additionally, several contemporary agencies have established multi-disciplinary outreach teams (i.e., officers riding along with social workers or substance abuse counselors) so that instead of arresting individuals for selling drugs, the officer can provide them immediately with: temporary shelter, access to medical assistance and/or harm reduction supplies, etc.

Purely environmental or displacement-based approaches do an excellent job of cleaning up one section of town for a couple of weeks before moving the problem down to the next section. Only by implementing integrated, multi-agency outreach initiatives will you see long term results. When law enforcement is acting as a "safe passage" to immediate access to drug treatment and transitional housing for those in need, it can help stop the cycle of abuse for many individual sex workers. As it relates to the demand side, there have been several successful strategies employed such as immediately impounding a buyer's car upon arrest; or publicly publishing the arrest record of buyers with fear of public humiliation being greater than a small fine.

There is no central hub of resources to assist those who need them. Instead, many urban communities have numerous disconnected service providers that exist as an amalgamation of patchwork type service models. They include; syringe exchange programs, mobile STI testing units on wheels, community mental health clinics, in-patient drug and alcohol treatment/rehabilitation programs, and various non-profit drop-in centers offering housing support during a crisis situation, clothes, food and legal assistance to those attempting to leave the sex industry.