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The Dallas Police Department is taking a new approach to the crime of prostitution. Rather than suppress the world’s oldest profession, Dallas police officers are treating them as victims of crime as opposed to criminals. It’s a new approach Dallas police officials hope will deter people from the crime. Instead of a trip to central booking, wherein the cops arrest someone for prostitution, they are processed at a mobile command vehicle where they can talk to social workers and health care providers about other options that will help them get off the street.
According to an in-depth story by Jeff Carlton, a reporter with the Associated Press, the jury is still out on whether the program will be successful in meeting its goals. Only half of the 375 women who have been given the opportunity to participate in the program have chosen to go through the rehabilitation program and of those, only 21 have left their lives on the street behind.
“But authorities say they’re gaining the women’s trust and some have even given them leads on unsolved crimes,” says the AP’s Carlton. The program is gaining notice in other parts of the country, and there are signs it could soon spread beyond Dallas. More than 200 law enforcement officers from the U.S. and Canada recently attended the National Prostitution Diversion conference in Dallas.
Since then, groups from Edmonton, Canada, Atlanta and Fort Worth have expressed an interest in learning more. “We are the pioneers, I suppose,” Renee Breazeale, program director for Homeward Bound, a nonprofit detoxification and counseling center in Dallas, told the AP’s Carlton. “It’s the only police-led program and represents a change of culture for law enforcement.”
The program starts with a monthly roundup of prostitutes in an area health officials say has a pandemic of syphilis. Dallas vice cops have identified more than 1,300 prostitutes who work four truck stops that serve more than 2,000 big rigs a day. “Truckers were conducting counter-surveillance for prostitutes,” Dallas police Sgt. Louis Felini said. “They let them use CB radios to advertise prostitution and drugs.
As soon as a squad car entered the lot, every truck driver along I-20 knew the cops were there.” Similar to arrests for drug use, arresting prostitutes is a frustrating business. Many of the women look at jail time as a cost of doing business and are right back out on the street within 48 hours. This revolving-door syndrome prompted Sgt. Felini to try something new.
He found five of the women who appeared to be the hardest to reform and found them spots in Homeward Bound. Eventually, they all gave up prostitution, and that gave Sgt. Felini an idea. “If we were able to do that for the worst of the worst, then maybe we could do that on a much larger scale,” he told Jeff Carlton. His idea prompted the implementation of the Prostitution Diversion Initiative where Dallas police set up a staging area once a month in a vacant lot near the truck stops.
Four mobile command trucks surround folding tables and chairs where social service workers set up shop. The women get a choice – participate in the diversion program or go to jail. Early results look promising. We’ll keep you posted. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
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