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Alternatives to the High Cost of Incarceration for Prostitution-Related Offenses

Author: Maureen Norton-Hawk.; Nicole Usher.; Mary Ellen Mastrorilli.

Source: Volume 18, Number 05, January/February 2015 , pp.65-68(4)

Abstract:

Incarceration fails to deal with the multitude of factors that lead some women to become involved in prostitution, frequently resulting in an arrest-incarceration-release-rearrest cycle that drains money from the public coffers. Was taxpayers’ money wisely spent? This article considers the alternative of a proposed Prostitution Specialty Court in Massachusetts that tries to address the individual’s behavioral and psychological issues that underlie the criminal behavior rather than punitive measures that simply perpetuate the cycle.

Keywords: corrections expenditures; legislating sexual morality; mental health and veterans’ courts; Midtown Community Court, in New York; STARS Program; accountability while providing improved opportunities for rehabilitation

Affiliations: 1: Suffolk University; 2: Boston University; 3: Boston University.