Glitches hurt effort to fight prostitution

The money raised so far, about $60,000, will be given to the city's Human Services Department, which is looking into a pilot project to help teenage prostitutes.

"Prostitution is not a victimless crime," City Attorney Tom Carr said. "The victims are the women themselves."

The City Council's public safety committee, led by Councilman Nick Licata, will meet today and is likely to pass an ordinance transferring the money from the city's general fund into the Human Services Department budget.

"I don't think there's any justice in enforcing our anti-prostitution laws unless we include treatment of the people we're arresting," Licata said.

Traditionally, customers caught soliciting prostitutes were given the option to enter a diversion program if it their first offense. For a $75 fine, they could avoid criminal prosecution and enter into a program that included an HIV awareness class.

In August 2002, the City Council adopted an ordinance that boosted the fine to $500. The idea, Carr said, was to build a fund that could be used to pay for treatment programs for prostitutes and others in the sex trade.

"We're going to give them this benefit," Carr said of the diversion program, "but they really should contribute to helping the people they victimized, and that's the prostitutes."

The fines created by the Sex Industry Victims Ordinance were supposed to raise about $100,000 annually, according to estimates made at the time it was adopted.

But earlier this year, a detective in the vice squad contacted Carr to ask if some of the money in the fund could go toward a program for teen prostitutes. Carr checked, and found that the money he thought was there wasn't.

When he asked for the account balance in January, more than two years after the program had begun, there was just $5,000 in the fund.

A clerking error in Municipal Court was routing the money not into the new fund, but into the city's general fund. In addition, many judges, Carr said, were not ordering the new, higher fine.

After some research, city accountants determined that the full amount raised by the higher fines was $60,000.

Marilyn Littlejohn, director of the Human Services Department's Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention Office, said the money would go toward selecting a residential care program for teenagers who have recently become involved in prostitution.

"We need to get them off the street," Littlejohn said.

The city agency has been working with Spruce Street Crisis Center on Capitol Hill, which takes in troubled teens for up to five days, seeing between 700 and 1,000 teenagers annually.

Since January, counselors at Spruce Street have seen more than 60 teenagers who identified themselves as having been involved in the sex industry, primarily in prostitution, Littlejohn said.

Because so often such teens have behavioral and chemical dependency problems, the city is considering using a residential treatment center that can take in clients for weeks at a time.

But the money may also be used to develop crisis counseling and education about what a life of prostitution entails for teens that Spruce Street is already seeing, to prevent them from entering the sex industry at all, Littlejohn said.

With the money available, Littlejohn estimates only a handful of teens will be helped initially. "We consider this a pilot program," she said.

The potential for more money is there. Last year, the city attorney charged 108 people with patronizing a prostitute. If all those charged were eligible for the diversion program, that could have raised $54,000.

Most of those types of arrests come during police stings, however, and tight budgets cut down on the number of stings police can conduct.

"I'm not sure what we can expect to raise," Licata said.

Still, he said, it's promising that several agencies are on the same page, trying to help those involved in prostitution.

"I think this is just one small step," he said.

MEETING TODAY

The Public Safety, Civil Rights and Arts Committee will meet at 10 a.m. today in the City Council chambers on the second floor of City Hall, 600 Fourth Ave., Seattle.

P-I reporter Hector Castro can be reached at 206-903-5396 or hectorcastro@seattlepi.com.

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