14 July 13th–July 19th, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | music | cafe | film | culTuRe | NighT+Day | feaTuRe | NeWs | OPiNiON | feeDBacK | cONTeNTs | diversion program is run by Catholic Charities, an organization that advertises its “faith-based roots.” The program is only available after a person’s first prostitution charge. Completing it is an intensive months-long process. To get the charge dropped, a person must attend 36 hours of classes followed by several weekly classes for 10 weeks. Those sessions include support group classes, life skills classes, counseling and “addictive behavior” therapy sessions, according to a flier for the program. The city pays Catholic Charities around $232,000 annually for the program, according to contract records. Meanwhile, if you’re convicted of hiring a sex worker, which is called solicitation of prostitution, the diversion program is far less stringent. It mandates a single eight- hour class and $725 fine. Most people who enter the city’s inten- sive prostitution diversion program fail to complete it, according to years of monthly reports obtained by New Times. Between May 2019 and November 2021, 122 partici- pants out of 228 failed out of the program, the reports showed. In 2022, the numbers improved and 65 out of 100 program participants were successful, the reports showed. So far in 2023, 53% of participants have been successful. But the program’s success rate falls short of the city’s diversion program for people charged with domestic violence offenses. That initiative has a 95% success rate. Jean Christofferson, a spokesperson for Catholic Charities, declined to comment. But she did provide New Times with a recent flier for the prostitution diversion program, which described it as “a diverse set of programs designed to give those involved in prostitution the help needed to break away from that cycle and rebuild their lives.” The flier claimed that 86% of successful participants were not charged again, citing statistics from the city. Activists are still critical of the diversion program. “It imposes religious morals onto a person when they were just trying to survive,” Mahoney said. The woman cited for prosti- tution in Phoenix said that she also went through the diversion program at one point. She described it as burdensome for many participants, though she also acknowledged that it provided important resources. “Not everyone has access to get to these classes,” she said. “They might have children, and they’re trying to make a living, whether it’s sex work or not.” Data from the program obtained by New Times shows that of participants with known incomes, 87% reported making $9,999 or less annually. Laws overturned elsewhere Manifestation of prostitution has been a crime in Phoenix since at least 1975, according to city council records, and was expanded in the 1990s. There are similar “intent” laws across the country that give police wide discretion to target sex workers. One common crime is “loitering for the purpose of prostitution,” a law that multiple states have on the books. Anne Gray Fischer, an assistant professor of history at the University of Texas-Dallas, has studied the laws and said they are vague on purpose. Those laws are “designed to be very broad, so that police can maximize their intervention and power to remove people from the streets for how they look,” she explained. In some places, such as New York, the laws were passed so that police could more quickly raid an area with prostitu- tion activity. Elsewhere in the country, there have been efforts to repeal such laws. In 2021, New York repealed its loitering law following a successful campaign by activ- ists that highlighted how police used the ordinance to harass trans people. In 2022, California repealed a similar law. In Florida in 2013, a court struck down a city’s “loitering with intent to commit prostitu- tion” law, finding it unconstitutional. In Phoenix, though, citations for mani- festation of the intent to commit prostitu- tion are continuing to be issued, with little public scrutiny. In January, after Navidad sentenced the young woman to 30 days in jail, the munic- ipal court judge paused and asked about her next steps. “What are you going to do when you get out of jail?” he asked. “Go to school or something. I want to do cosmetology school,” she answered. “Do you have a plan on how you might be able to afford that? Or where you’re going to live?” the judge asked her. After a moment, a note of irony in her voice, she said, “Nope. We’re going to have to go day by day and figure it out.” City of Phoenix Dress Code from p 13 City prosecutors declined to discuss the ordinance that critics say is used to target trans and Black people.
