The Compassionate Court?

Support, Surveillance, and Survival in Prostitution Diversion Programs

Corey S. Shdaimah, Chrysanthi S. Leon, Shelly A. Wiechelt

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781439922019
  9781439922002
• eBook ISBN:
  9781439922026
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Criminologia

Laws subject people who perform sex work to arrest and prosecution.  The Compassionate Court? assesses two prostitution diversion programs (PDPs) that offer to "rehabilitate" people arrested for street-based sex work as an alternative to incarceration. However, as the authors show, these PDPs often fail to provide sustainable alternatives to their mandated clients. Participants are subjected to constant surveillance and obligations, which creates a paradox of responsibility in conflict with the system's logic of rescue. Moreover, as the participants often face shame and re-traumatization as a price for services, poverty and other social problems, such as structural oppression, remain in place.
 
The authors of The Compassionate Court? provide case studies of such programs and draw upon interviews and observations conducted over a decade to reveal how participants and professionals perceive court-affiliated PDPs, clients, and staff. Considering the motivations, vision, and goals of these programs as well as their limitations—the inequity and disempowerment of their participants—the authors also present their own changing perspectives on prostitution courts, diversion programs, and criminalization of sex work.
 

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Prostitution Diversion Programs—A New Paradigm or Business as Usual?
• 1. Prostitution Diversion: Criminalization, Individual Responsibility, and Rescue
• 2. Study Sites: Prostitution Diversion Programs in Baltimore and Philadelphia
• 3. “That Foot on Their Neck”: Coercion and Choice
• 4. “I’ve Been Raped, I’ve Been Robbed, But I Could Have Been Killed”: Intersections of Trauma, Substance Use Problems, and Prostitution in the Eyes of the Court
• 5. “I’ve [Got] Hooker Court Every Month”: Shame and Shaming in Prostitution Diversion Programs
• 6. “To Be Normal”: Building, Rebuilding, and Surveilling Relationships: Social Connection in the Shadow of the Courts
• 7. “Figuring Out What Should Happen”: Transformative or Conforming Practice?
• 8. “Better Than Nothing”?
• Appendix A: Original Study Description
• Appendix B: “Looking Back, Looking Forward” Follow-Up Study
• Appendix C: Project Dawn Court and Specialized Prostitution Diversion Participants
• Appendix D: Criminal Legal System Professionals
• Notes
• References
• Index