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Recidivism Among the Customers of Female Street Prostitutes: Do Intervention Programs Help?

NCJ Number
195328
Journal
Western Criminology Review Volume: 3 Issue: 2 Dated: 2002 Pages: 1-10
Date Published
2002
Length
10 pages
Annotation

This article assesses the recidivism rates of men attempting to hire street prostitutes.

Abstract

This article presents a study of the recidivism rates of men who were arrested trying to hire street prostitutes. To help reduce the practice of prostitution and hold its patrons responsible, several “johns schools” have been developed in the United States to educate men about prostitution and its exploitative nature. The now defunct SEEP (Sexual Exploitation Education Project), located in Portland, Oregon was one such program. The subjects at the focus of this study were arrested in Portland, Oregon and either ordered to attend SEEP and did, were ordered to attend and did not, or were not ordered to attend SEEP. Analyzing six different variables using chi-square tests allowed these authors to determine that recidivism rates for both men attending the Portland program and those who did not attend were low. These findings lead the researchers to conclude that recidivism may not be a useful measure of the effectiveness of programs such as SEEP and that being arrested may be the deterrent itself. References

Date Published: January 1, 2002