Crime and compassion: Women in prostitution at the intersection of criminality and victimization

Running head: CRIME AND COMPASSION

Crime and Compassion: Women in Prostitution at the Intersection of Criminality and

Victimization *

Corey S. Shdaimah, School of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Shelly A. Wiechelt, School of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

*This is the accepted version of an article published in International Review of Victimology

19(1), 23-35. The final version is available at http://irv.sagepub.com/content/19/1/23.abstract

CRIME AND COMPASSION

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Abstract

Women who are charged with prostitution sit at an intersection of victimization and criminality. It is widely acknowledged that many women who engage in prostitution, especially those engaged in street prostitution, suffer from a variety of problems including past and current trauma and abuse, substance abuse, mental and physical health disorders, and housing instability. Our interviews and focus groups with women (N=17) currently and formerly engaged in prostitution reveal that survival needs and coercion are factors in their involvement in prostitution. They are also commonly victimized prior to and during their involvement in prostitution. In August of 2007, the State’s Attorney’s Office of the City of Baltimore began an initiative to create an alternative for people who are charged with prostitution, which is a crime in Maryland. These efforts stem from what may be considered a discomfort and ambivalence with a criminological approach to offenders who are simultaneously considered victims. Diversionary approaches are an attempt to manage these ambivalent and often conflicting constructions of women who engage in prostitution. However, such programs will largely serve as a palliative rather than a long term solution if they fail to address the personal and structural factors that severely circumscribe the choices available to this marginalized population.

Keywords: prostitution, victimization, criminality, diversion programs, women, trauma


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Crime and Compassion: Women in Prostitution at the Intersection of Criminality and

Victimization

Prostitution Refracted through a Criminal Justice Lens

Concerned citizens of Baltimore identify prostitution as a problem in their local

communities (Pierce, 2008). They complain about men driving through the community in search

of sex and the effluvia generated by prostitution such as used condoms, syringes, and drug vials

strewn about neighborhoods and parks (Hermann, 2009). Citizens expect a public response that

will eradicate prostitution in their communities. Many also recognize that the women engaging in

prostitution may be vulnerable and need help to exit (Anderson, 2007; Robarge, 2009; Shame for

the Shameful, 2009). Citizens of Baltimore are not atypical; prostitution has been seen as a

nuisance to communities for centuries.

Responses to prostitution historically have ranged from complete criminalization and

prosecution of all those involved in buying and selling sex to legalization of prostitution as a

business enterprise with government regulation (Evans, 1979). Proponents of legalized

prostitution argue that the professionalization of sex work legitimizes women’s choice to provide

sexual services thereby empowering them. Additionally, a legalized sex industry can be

regulated and controlled, thereby reducing the criminality and public health risks associated with

prostitution. In the United States (U.S.), prostitution is illegal except in Nevada where the

determination of legality is left up to each individual county. Prostitution is classified as a

misdemeanor with possible punishments of fines or imprisonment that vary across state or

county jurisdictions. In Maryland those who are found guilty of prostitution face penalties that

include fines up to $500, up to one year in prison, or both (Maryland Code, §11-306). The

criminalization of prostitution in the U.S. is rooted in both public health and morality concerns

(Weitzer, 2010). In this article, we use the term “prostitution,” rather than the term “sex work”


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that was created to encompass a broader range of activities including lap dancing, stripping, and

pornography (Quan, 2006). While we recognize the debate around terminology, we choose this

term because of its legal connotations and because this is the term that our respondents used in

interviews and focus groups.

Social science literature has paid some attention to pathways into prostitution, but these

largely focus on individualized experiences such as trauma or drug use. The harm experienced

by women in prostitution may be rooted in experiences they had prior to entering prostitution

such as childhood physical or sexual abuse, domestic violence, drug abuse, homelessness, and

poverty (Farley, 2003; Hood-Brown, 1998; Sloss & Harper, 2004). Once women enter

prostitution, they are at increased risk for additional violence and victimization (Dalla, 2001; El-

Bassel, 2001; Sanders, 2004). They are also at increased risk for psychological problems

(depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex-PTSD, and substance use disorders)

and health problems (HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, cervical cancer, other sexually transmitted diseases,

dental problems) (Farley, 2003). Stigmatization and shame coupled with the effects of substance

abuse and trauma make it difficult for women in prostitution to have intimate and meaningful

relationships thereby increasing their sense of isolation and loneliness (Farley, 2004; Sallman,

2010; Williamson & Folaron, 2003).

More recently, scholars have examined some of the more systemic factors that influence

prostitution, such as poverty, limited employment opportunities, and cultural understandings of

women’s roles and options that may make prostitution the best of extremely circumscribed

options that women have to survive (O’Connell Davidson, 1998; Phoenix, 1999; Shdaimah &

Wiechelt, in press). Others have noted the importance of legal regimes in structuring the

experience of prostitution and impacting on safety of women (Scoular, 2010). However, the


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exploitation and harm experienced by many women in prostitution has been rendered largely

invisible in both the legal and treatment process, as these are often designed to encourage

desistance without recognizing or addressing the poverty and trauma that is so often prevalent

and intertwined with prostitution (Baldwin, 2006; Farley, 2003; 2004). Not only does

criminalization generally take no account of systemic or individual motivations to enter into or

continue engaging in prostitution, but it can in fact increase harm. Criminalization often reduces

the power and leverage of women engaged in prostitution, making it even more dangerous

(Brewis & Linstead, 2000; International Union of Sex Workers, 2010; Sanders, 2005).

Some argue that legalization of prostitution would render the whole operation visible and

subject to regulation thereby reducing the risk for coercion and harms (Nussbaum, 1998).

Raymond (2004), however, contends that an examination of the effects of social policy regarding

prostitution both historically and currently reveals that harms against women remain whether

prostitution is legalized or criminalized. Where legalization has occurred, some report increases

in illegal and unregulated prostitution and trafficking (Raymond, 2004). In contrast, Weitzer

(2010) describes the experience of countries where legalized prostitution has coexisted side by

side with compliance with international anti-trafficking measures as well as a decrease in

trafficking in the Netherlands. Kuo (2002) praises the Dutch approach that combines legalization

with open discussion of prostitution in a straightforward rather than moralistic manner, allowing

for a more rational and inclusive policy process. These indicate that the legalization of

prostitution need not be seen as state approval of trafficking or a slippery slope that leaves

trafficking unaddressed. Even where legal, however, women engaged in prostitution may

continue to operate outside of the system to avoid the permanent stigma associated with

governmental identification as a prostitute.


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Abolitionists who do not want to cause further harm to women engaged in prostitution

advocate for policies that decouple the criminalization of solicitation from prostitution, such as in

the Swedish or Canadian model (Almog, 2010; Freeman, 1989-90). Such approaches aim to curb

commercial sex by punishing clients, often referred to as johns but not those who sell sex.

Attempts have also been made to further regulate all forms of commercial sex through civil

sanction or through use of criminal sanction that does not cite prostitution per se but rather

targets related activities such as “kerb-crawling” or soliciting in public spaces (Melrose, 2006).

These efforts are largely aimed at removing prostitution from certain public spaces, rather than

any concern for those engaging in it who have little say in official policies, even if some are

adept at learning to work within and around policy changes (Sanders, 2005).

While the prevailing policy response to prostitution in the U.S. is criminal sanction

(Weitzer, 2000), some jurisdictions are experimenting with punitive responses that include a

supportive or therapeutic component. These are part of the broader problem-solving court efforts

across the country (Porter, Rempel, & Masky, 2010). Like their mental health and drug court

counterparts, prostitution problem-solving efforts are premised on the belief that current criminal

justice responses that Wolfe (2001) refers to as “revolving door justice” are insufficient. This is

because they do not address the underlying problems such as addiction, poor education or

employment skills, and lack of affordable housing that may give rise or contribute to continued

engagement in prostitution. The goal of these court-related programs is to decrease prostitution

by providing services and attempting to rehabilitate offenders (Shively, Jalbert, et al., 2008).

They represent the profound ambivalence that society has toward women who engage in

prostitution. On the one hand, those engaged in prostitution are prosecuted as criminals; on the

other hand, proponents of these efforts seek alternatives to the dominant criminal justice


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framework that defines them exclusively as perpetrators. One reason that this tension may remain

entrenched in court-based programs, even as some try to resolve it through the provision of

desperately needed services, is that criminal justice attempts remain individually focused and do

not interrogate or challenge underlying societal factors that motivate women to engage in

prostitution.

Baltimore City’s efforts to address street-level prostitution resulted in the creation of the

Specialized Prostitution Diversion Program (Kearney, 2010; Shdaimah, 2010). The SPD allows

eligible participants to recategorize themselves as victims in need of services. If they

successfully complete the 90-day program, the charges against them are null-processed and can

be expunged, and the re-categorization from alleged offender to (now-treated) victim is

complete. In this paper, we present our analysis of the perspectives of people engaged in

prostitution who are rarely consulted in policy debates (Dalla, 2000) on the provision of court-

based services.

Methods

This study is based on interviews and focus groups with people who attend a drop-in

program for women engaged in prostitution at an agency called You Are Never Alone (YANA),

located in a low-income Baltimore City neighborhood. YANA’s Executive Director is a

stakeholder on the SPD steering committee, and therefore would likely encourage clients to

participate in the SPD. YANA allowed us to conduct research on location during drop-in hours,

providing a safe, relatively quiet, and private space. YANA has a particular philosophy regarding

prostitution, one that largely characterizes it as a survival strategy of last resort rather than an

empowered decision or profession; this likely influenced our respondents’ characterization of

people engaged in prostitution.


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Study methods were vetted by YANA clients and staff. They helped refine our questions

and informed us what study procedures would be conducive to eliciting candid responses and

avoid offense. All study procedures were reviewed and approved by the authors’ respective

Institutional Review Boards. The three members of the research team spent approximately 100

hours combined at YANA between August 2009 and August 2010. We conducted two focus

groups that centered on building rapport and understanding how women saw themselves. During

the focus groups, women made collages that expressed their dreams and hopes and were asked to

share these and talk about them. Focus groups were followed by individual interviews using a

semi-structured interview guide. We obtained background information from the 11 participants

who completed individual interviews (4 completed interviews and focus groups and 7 completed

interviews only). An additional six participants participated in focus groups but did not complete

interviews, for a total sample size of 17. Participants who completed the interviews ranged from

22 to 55 years of age (M = 40.55, SD = 10.70). Five participants identified their race as White

and 6 as African American. Their years of education ranged from 9 to 15 (5 did not complete

high school, 1 obtained a GED, 2 completed high school, and 3 had some college education).

The age that participants first entered prostitution ranged from 13 to 36 (M = 22.27, SD = 6.34).

All participants who completed the interview reported traumatic events, most typically physical

or sexual violence. Most of the women experienced childhood physical and sexual abuse and

physical and sexual violence as adults, including assaults that occurred while they engaged in

prostitution (Wiechelt & Shdaimah, in press).

All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. We use pseudonyms to protect

confidentiality of our respondents; where respondents chose their own pseudonyms, we use

these. Data were analyzed to build and generate both descriptive analysis (Sandelowski, 2000)


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and to build theory (Charmaz, 2006), rather than start out with a specific testable hypothesis

(Padgett, 2008) which was most appropriate in light of our limited knowledge of clients’

experiences. We employed a constant comparative method of data analysis to allow us to check

emerging themes with subsequent respondents (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). In

order to enhance the rigor of our analysis, the researchers developed independent coding

schemes. These were reviewed and merged through discussion and consensus in order to create a

unified coding scheme, which was then applied to all transcripts including those already coded.

NVIVO qualitative data software was used to assist in the analysis. In this article, we draw from

data that pertained to how prostitution and people engaged in prostitution were characterized,

which was identified by our respondents as the most important information that they would like

the courts and policymakers to consider

Results

Pathways to Prostitution: A Matter of Choice?

One of the key elements of criminal responsibility is mens rea or intent, which implies a

level of volition. Prosecutors, law enforcement, and community representatives on the SPD

steering committee struggled with punishment as a response to activities that originate in

coercion or dire circumstances. This is because when alternatives to prostitution are not

available, punishment is likely to be an ineffective deterrent. For some, punishment may also be

morally concerning in that it does not seem to be an appropriate response to such a vulnerable

group. The sense that people sell sex for money because they have no other choice is pervasive

in our interviews and focus groups. Mouse, an African American woman who engaged in

prostitution for 20 years, now an HIV/AIDS educator, said: “And everybody that I know of that

prostituted did not raise their hand and say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a prostitute.’”


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All participants described prostitution as something that they felt they were compelled to do.

Whether coerced by relatives or partners, economic survival, or addiction, they explained that

prostitution was not a profession or activity they would have chosen, had they believed that

realistic alternatives existed.

Nalia, a 22 year-old African American woman who first engaged in prostitution at 16,

describes YANA as “a community of women that are trying to upgrade their life to the point that

we’re not in bondage anymore.” Vu is an African American woman who describes herself as “a

former prostitute.” Her career aspirations thwarted when she became pregnant at 16, she comes

from a “family of alcoholics” and has “struggled with addiction for the past 30 years.” Like

Nalia, she seeks help because “it’s hard out on the street. I try to find all the support I can get.

Oh, God, I take every opportunity, because we really don’t want to be this way.” As Nalia’s

characterization of bondage implies, escape may be possible but very difficult. The women in

our sample, like Vu, told us that while their desire to make changes that will enable them to stop

engaging in prostitution is strong, they need help. In this section, we describe some of the

circumstances that lead women to feel as though they must engage in prostitution.

Vulnerability and exploitation.

Some women began selling sex for money because they were coerced by others. Kara, a 48 year

old White woman explained how her childhood influenced her life choices. Her mother “tried to

get [me and my sister], when we were like 11 and 12, to get into engaging in sexual activity for

money.”

I had to survive because my parents were alcoholics and they fought all the time and

would put us out on the street. My sister was 12 and I was 13… I would watch out for my

baby sister. I would say, ‘You sit right here and I’ll be right back.’ And, she would say,


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‘Don’t you go with that man.’ And I said, ’I’ll be alright.’ She was only 12, but she

would get the tag numbers [of their cars].

Women also told us that they or others were encouraged or forced into prostitution by partners.

Mouse explains:

They think everybody out here wants to do it, but many of them are being forced into

prostitution. You know, when you have a boyfriend that you love and you’re trying to

make them happy. Or some people are forced by parents. I had a mother that told me that

if you didn’t trick to make money that you couldn’t live in her house.

Vision, now 52, is an African American woman who engaged in prostitution as a teenager,

was married and off the streets for 30 years, and returned to prostitution and addiction after her

husband died. She saw prostitution as something that women are forced into: “They want to be

good women and good mothers to their children, they really do.” She now does outreach, talking

to women who she says “really want to get off the streets, but they don’t have anywhere to go.

Then, some of the men that they have to stay with, they just make them do awful things.”

Elana, a 55 year old White woman, explained that when she first engaged in prostitution, at

26, she thought she had no choice. She worries about other young women whose vulnerability

may be exploited.

[A]t the time, I thought I didn’t have any choice and I know a lot of these kids and young

women leave home and go out there. They’re such an easy prey. They’re made to feel that

they are being taken care of, but all of the time…their pimp is just lulling them into their

false security. That’s another place; if anybody can do it - get to these bus stations and stuff,

because that’s where a lot of the young ones come in at.

Elana describes young people who have no guidance or support as particularly vulnerable. The


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vulnerability and lack of options perceived by the women in our sample made prostitution seem

as though it was their only option for survival.

Survival.

Most of the women who participated in our study described their need to engage in

prostitution as a means to get money, food, clothing, housing, drugs, or even love. They saw no

other way of surviving even though they knew that they were placing themselves at high risk for

harm. They also knew that others viewed them as bad, shameful, and criminal. Maggie, a 32

year old White woman who has engaged in prostitution for about 8 years, was troubled by the

stigma associated with prostitution. She explained: “Just because we went out to prostitute

doesn’t mean we’re bad people. It just means that that is the only thing we thought we could do

to survive.” Lala, a 26 year old African American mother, fled an abusive husband, arriving in

Baltimore friendless and alone. She got her start in prostitution when a newly found so-called

friend suggested prostitution as a means of getting food.

And, in my case, it was usually people who posed to be my friend. They would

say, ‘Well, I got a way that you could make some money so that you could go and

get something to eat’, or, ‘Well, I’ll go get you something to eat if you do this

favor for me’. And that’s pretty much how it started.

She continued to engage in prostitution even though she personally witnessed the violent

events that often occur in the lives of women in prostitution. She stated “I’ve seen a lot

of things happen to girls. From almost getting raped, to getting raped, being beaten, shot

at [pause] you know it’s not a pretty thing”. Even though the dangerous risks associated

with prostituting herself were evident to her, Lala saw no other way to get housing and

care for herself.


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I went down there to the rental assistance place and explained my situation to

them. I told them that my mother was getting ill and that I need to step up and I

the only way I really see myself doing that is with a little Section 8 or an income-

based apartment, or something along those lines. I really have been turning up

every rock I could find to try to do that. Right now, I just feel really helpless.

Vision also describes the physical need to survive.

When you’re walking the streets and stuff, you seem like you just worry about where

your next meal is going to come from, where you’re going to take your next shower, and

where you’re going to lay your head, so this is why a lot of us out there turn to those

different men, because, we want somewhere comfortable to lay our heads. When it’s cold

out there, you want to get out of the cold.

Like Vision, many others in our sample mentioned housing as a major obstacle to change. Vu

explained that even women who do not sell sex on the streets will often engage in unwanted sex

in order to remain housed.

Nalia told us that she got into prostitution for three reasons: being sexually assaulted as a

child, not being loved, and needing money. She reported that the two main reason were the

“sexual assault and not be[ing] loved”. She described her failed efforts to feel loved through

prostitution.

Yea, I would like them to know about the sexual assault and not feeling like you’re loved

so the only way you can feel loved is to go out and do that and maybe I’ll feel loved.

And, to be honest, it doesn’t turn out that way. But people don’t see you that way. They

just see you as a breaking the law person, as a trick, you just a ho.


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She had stopped engaging in prostitution for over two years, but went back to it because she

needed money.

I still do it nowadays, I’m still not going to say I’m an angel, because I’m not. I need

money, just like everybody else needs money. So, they ask, what do you do it for and I

say the money. I need my phone bill paid and I need food, so if you can provide them

two, then I don’t have to do it. But if you can’t, then I’m stuck. And, it’s hard because

you don’t want to go back, but at the same time, you don’t have nothing.

Kara said she used drugs and alcohol to cope with mental illness and trauma. Kara

developed an addiction to heroin and needed to make money so that she could purchase drugs

and avoid withdrawal symptoms. She stated: “So I was a heroin addict. I didn’t care; I worked

the streets for $10…whatever I could get.” While she engaged in prostitution as a means to

support her addictions, it also led to further trauma and abuse which she suffered as an adult at

the hands of partners and johns, as well as with myriad health problems including HIV/AIDS and

hepatitis. Kara was able to stop using heroin with the help of a methadone maintenance program

and got out of prostitution for several years until physical survival needs drove her back.

Like, they call me grandma or mama [pause] but, they know I’m going to do what I’m

going to do. And I haven’t been out on the street for 10 years, until 2 weeks ago when my

sister threw me out and I have nowhere else to stay, so I turned back to prostitution to try

and survive…

To make sure I survive and eat because I’m HIV positive and I gotta take care of myself.

And there is no other means of support. I’ve tried everything. They cut me off, and I have

no other money, and I can’t go hungry, because I keep ending up in the hospital [pause]

dehydrated or something else. So, I’m not doing that anymore [pause] I need to eat.


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Like many of our respondents, it can be hard to separate childhood and adult trauma, illness,

addiction, economic distress, and prostitution, all of which seem to be co-occurring and mutually

reinforcing.

The need to survive along with the real or perceived absence of other options clearly

influences women’s entrance into prostitution. Access to money and resources provides a

fleeting sense of security at tremendous cost. Lala describes the motivation, the reward, and the

costs of prostitution.

Because they just want to live. That’s all people want to do anyway. That’s why anybody

does what they do. Where people see these people as criminals and that they should be

locked up, but in all actuality, they’re just people trying to survive. That’s it. They may

not be doing it the best way, but hey, nobody was there showing them how to do it any

differently. With drugs, it doesn’t really matter where you grew up, there’s no

discrimination. But when it comes to criminal activity out here in the poverty stricken

neighborhood and nobody has any money. Then someone tells you, ‘all you have to do is

this.’ And then you start getting a lot of fast cash and of course that’s gonna feel good

and make you feel powerful. But in the process, you have to understand the emotional

and physical stress and destruction that they are putting themselves through every night

that they get dressed up.

The women we interviewed described very real survival needs that drove them, kept them, or

returned them to prostitution. These included the need for shelter, food, love, and addressing

physical health concerns. While some might argue whether drugs are necessary for survival,

women who struggle with addiction and withdrawal perceived this as a survival need,

particularly in the absence of available addiction or mental health treatment. Although


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prostitution might help women meet immediate survival needs, engaging in prostitution

conversely creates and increases risk (Wiechelt & Shdaimah, in press). As we discuss below, it

also reduces the likelihood that women will be able to ensure their survival in ways other than

engaging in prostitution, especially if it reduces their employability by other means through

legal, physical and mental health consequences.

The Futility of Punishment

Respondents told us that programs like the SPD that are designed to help women cease

engagement in prostitution should consider the very real survival needs that prostitution allows

these women to meet. Punishment for prostitution is likely to have little effect when the need for

food, housing, clothing, drugs, or love overrides the shame, degradation, and fear they

experience with prostitution. As Lala described:

But, when you’re in that situation, it’s like, okay, you care about me, but what can you do

to help my situation? And, if some people really want to change, then they’ll show up for

support groups and things like that. But, they’ll wind up dwindling off because they need

time to make money, basically. It’s just a vicious cycle.

Help must go beyond support and efforts to transform women in prostitution; it should include a

means of meeting basic survival needs in order to be effective over the long term. Even

treatment, if not accompanied by concrete material assistance and a means to survive otherwise,

likely will not have a long-term impact. Criminalization of prostitution as a mechanism of

deterrence actually sets up the circumstances for women to return to prostitution. It not only does

not provide alternatives for survival, it places additional limitations on women’s options by

giving them a criminal record. Nalia explains how:


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Because I have so many charges on my record, the state wasn’t trying to get me a job. So I

was seen as unemployable. And the state is seen as unforgiving. You’ve broken the law or

been given a diagnosis, you’re not going to ever be forgiven for that one act. So it’s almost

like you’re continually being punished for something that you did a long time ago.

Many of our respondents indicated that women who leave prison face extreme difficulties

finding legal employment. Public benefits (such as public housing) may also be curtailed by

convictions. Respondents told us that many women will return to prostitution, especially if they

return to their old friends or neighborhoods, for assistance when all else fails.

Women’s description of lack of choice may be to some extent self-serving to avoid the

stigma and shame associated with prostitution. It is clear from the interviews, however, that

women believe that their choices are severely circumscribed. Not only is the perception

pervasive, but women told us that they engaged in prostitution despite their awareness of the

danger it posed to their health and safety. Reba, a 43 year-old African American woman who

first engaged in prostitution when she was 27, learned about YANA when she was in jail. Reba

explained succinctly: “We lay in bed with people we don’t want to. We make money. We have

sex for money.” She told us “I was forced to do stuff I didn’t want to do. I almost got killed

several times and managed to get out. ‘Cause I needed the money.” Similar occurrences of

violence at the hands of johns and near fatal incidents to themselves or others were described by

most participants. When asked if she felt traumatized by these incidents, Reba replied “At the

time I was prostituting, no. You do what you have to do and that’s the risk that you take.” The

extreme vulnerability and lack of choice presented by the women in our sample is at the base of

court efforts to provide alternatives to incarceration and is consistent with the focus of the SPD.

Women engage in prostitution largely because they have been exploited and/or suffer from a


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variety of personal, health, and economic challenges that make prostitution a rational choice in

the absence of other options.

Discussion

While victimization and vulnerability are pervasive, we do not claim that they are always

or exclusively present in all cases of prostitution. There is a body of literature, some of it written

by sex workers, which sees sex work as legitimate employment that should not be stigmatized or

criminalized and, in fact, may be a means to empowerment (Kuo, 2002; Quan, 2006). While we

do not disagree theoretically that this may fit some people in particular social contexts, this is not

an accurate description of our sample of women involved in street-level prostitution work which

is often considered the most stigmatized and risky form of sex work (Chapkis, 2000; Weitzer,

2009). None of our study participants used the term sex work or identified prostitution as a

volitional career choice or means to empowerment. The women in our sample can best be

described by what O’Connell Davison (1998) claims is the overwhelming reason that women

engage in prostitution: “because the economic, political, and social circumstances in which they

live make it either the best or the only means of subsisting, or they are people who are forced

into prostitution by a third party. (p. 5).” This definition recognizes both the limited range of

choices available to women who engage in prostitution and their exercise of varying degrees of

agency. Those who are apprehended in the street sweeps that represent the bulk of cases on the

Baltimore City docket are generally low-income women with histories of drug addiction and

trauma and are extremely vulnerable like the women in our sample from YANA (S. Diehl,

personal communication, August 4, 2010).

We are well aware of the sociology and criminology literature that discusses agency (e.g.

Ajzenstadt, 2009; Rosen and Vankatesh, 2008; and the literature reviewed there). We searched


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for expressions of such agency specifically in our analysis of the data and, indeed, found that

women did assert agency in a number of ways. Most identified themselves as survivors and have

exercised choices, even if these are severely limited by their job opportunities, educational

backgrounds, personal histories of trauma, addiction, and other health and mental health

problems: Elana, who began charging her husband for sex in order to assert some control over

frequent and unexpected rapes; Kara, who asked her sister to write down license plate numbers;

all of the women who have sought out and provided mutual assistance to fellow YANA

members. The women we spoke with displayed dignity, strength, and a strong will to survive.

However, the expressions of agency were in circumstances that were so severely circumscribed

as to make them pale in comparison to the lack of better alternatives so that they often seemed

theoretical and unrealistic (Baldwin, 2006). Like Freeman (1989-90), while we do not doubt

accounts of empowerment and agency by some women engaged in prostitution, they do not

accurately describe the experiences of the women in our study.

The acquisition of money in an impoverished environment is in some ways empowering.

The internal logic of our respondents is consistent with Rosen and Vankatesh’s (2008) assertion,

based on ethnographic research in prostitution in one Chicago community, that prostitution may

be a rational choice given social and personal circumstances. While context and social

environment may make engaging in prostitution rational, it would be hard to suggest that the

social circumstances that make prostitution a viable and even preferable alternative are ideal or

should be celebrated. The dangers, particularly of street level prostitution, are real and severe

(Dalla, 2001; El-Bassel, 2001; Sanders, 2004). The social stigma of engaging in prostitution is

also very real, even if it may be lessened in communities that recognize prostitution as a logical

option.


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The very real problem of limited agency is particularly troubling in criminal cases. While

women intend to engage in prostitution in the sense that this term is used to construct criminal

responsibility under the law, their highly circumscribed choices leads them to feel compelled to

do so despite a desire to desist and fear of legal consequences. Prosecution and punishment

generally serve goals of deterrence and rehabilitation. Criminalization makes little sense if

prostitution is understood as coercion, or as the best and most logical choice under severely

limited personal, social, and economic circumstances. Criminalization, prosecution, and

punishment will not deter or rehabilitate women engaging in prostitution if the underlying

circumstances and prevailing socio-economic arrangements go unchanged. Interviews with

women in YANA tell us that punitive criminal responses to women who sell sex for money are

unlikely to be successful.

Some have suggested that problem-solving court models are adaptations to the result of

failed punitive policies such as the U.S. War on Drugs (McCoy, 2003) that can do little to meet

the needs of its target population. Jo Phoenix (2007) asserts that neo-liberal tactics of managing

prostitution are a hybrid form of governance from above (top down coercive state) and below

(volunteer and social service agencies). Thus, the SPD may be about governance intended to

manage street-level prostitution as much as (or more than) it is about rectifying a mismatch

between policy response to prostitution and the needs of women engaged in prostitution.

Regardless of policy frameworks and shifts in criminalization logics, the material realities of

poverty and violence against women cannot be managed nor remedied by a coercive state. The

legal system has been able to sidestep a more contentious debate over a prostitution policy rife

with internal contradictions through programs such as the SPD. Such programs allow the state to

continue criminal sanction as a societal expression of disapproval for prostitution while

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acknowledging the limited options facing those who engage in it but without having to grapple

with the systemic and societal forces that so severely circumscribe these choices. The offer of

services through the courts or the prosecution such as the SPD and similar problem solving

efforts (Shively, Jalbert, et al., 2008) is an important palliative for the mismatch between a penal

approach and the underlying causes of prostitution and the social factors that make it a viable

“choice” for women like those in our sample. However, it is also concerning if it deflects our

attention from challenging the societal conditions that allow for the circumscription of women’s

choices and the exploitation of victimization and vulnerability (Bumiller, 2008; Shdaimah,

2010). So long as these diversionary programs do not grapple with the underlying concerns they

can only go so far as a remedy in individual cases or as a broader social phenomenon.


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Crime and compassion: Women in prostitution at the intersection of criminality and victimization

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