[Music]
when I was a senior in college I had a
professor in a particular class that
asked us to go around the room and share
where we wanted to be in 10 years so I
listened to my classmates say things
like I want to be married and have a
couple of children maybe open up a
private practice things you would expect
and when it came to me I simply said as
if it was the most natural thing for me
to say I want to work with prostitutes
now my short asian male professor I
think didn’t quite know what I meant by
work with prostitutes
he began blushing pretty badly it felt
really awkward and we just moved on from
there I know what you’re thinking what
causes a person to want to work with
prostitutes
well the unfortunately common but
derogatory words that we use to describe
prostitutes today words like whore slut
temptress these are the words that I
felt as a child and a young teenager
described me not because I had been
involved in prostitution but because I
had experienced several doses of sexual
abuse between ages five and ten many
sexual abuse survivors feel that they’re
to blame for their abuse they feel like
there’s something wrong with them I felt
like there was something wrong with me I
felt like I was some kind of
eight-year-old temptress now fortunately
I had an amazing family and came from a
privileged background I had access to
all the resources and therapy that I
needed to heal from my trauma and that
dream I had as a senior in college it
came true almost ten years exactly later
I was hired by the Franklin County
Municipal Court to work with prostitutes
I have the privilege of coordinating a
program called catch court for survivors
of prostitution and human trafficking
it’s a problem-solving court or a
specialized docket and these kinds of
courts have been around in our country
since 1989 you may be familiar with
things like mental health courts or drug
courts and they all follow this
restorative justice philosophy that says
because crime hurts justice should heal
so catch which is just specifically for
survivors of prostitution and
trafficking stands for changing actions
to change habits it does not stand for
caught at the corner hooking remember
that so in 2007 what happened was there
was a shift in a policy and this shift
brought a lot more attention to domestic
violence cases and what was what would
happen is that many more facts and
images photographs of domestic violence
victims were presented to judges who
were presiding over these cases so one
day in 2007 Judge Paul Herbert was
presiding an arraignment court here in
Franklin County and he had 37 domestic
violence cases which meant that he spent
a big chunk of his morning looking at
images like this domestic violence
victim after victim and after these
cases were done
his next offend inque min to the
courtroom and the case file said
prostitute and he looked up at her and
he describes that for a split second he
saw all the images he had been looking
at all morning he saw a domestic
violence victim he was really curious
about that it took a wise judge to be
curious not just about the crime and
what she had done but about what had
happened to her so you know he literally
like goes back to his office and
Google’s Criminology of prostitution to
try to learn about the background of
these women and I want to tell you a
little bit about the backgrounds of
these women this is based on about a
sampling of about 95 women who’ve come
through our program so generally
speaking they come from a low
socioeconomic status generally they
haven’t even completed high school and
no one to this point has been a college
grad
do it most of them are moms many of them
have already been involved in the mental
health system in our community many of
them began using drugs at a very young
age
somewhere between al ages ages 11 and 14
typically but all of them by the time
they get to us have been diagnosed with
a substance use disorder without a doubt
these are women who have extensive
trauma in their background again out of
95 89 of them report having experienced
sexual violence the same number it’s
meant partner violence and 88 the
unexpected loss or death of a loved one
so you tell me is this woman a criminal
is she a victim what I can tell you from
working with these women is that there
are threads of both in their stories
there are threads of trauma and
victimization and also threads of
criminal thinking and so we need a sort
of trauma-informed justice to respond so
catch court seeks to provide both
trauma-informed care and also
accountability because both are needed
this is me the little girl the little
girl who was sexually abused as a child
and again I’m very aware that if I
didn’t come from privileged and having
had access to resources that my story it
could have ended up a lot different it
could have ended up a lot like Mandy’s
this is Mandy Mandy grew up in an
addicted household she was verbally
physically sexually abused as a child
she ended up homeless and bounced around
from family member to family member she
got involved in a pretty intense
romantic relationship at the age of 13
she attempted suicide as a teenager
ultimately she began using drugs to cope
with everything she’d experienced got
involved with prostitution
and then she was recruited by a pimp on
the east side of Columbus and in her
time in the life she had her jaw broken
and a gun to her head she was raped and
of course eventually she began picking
up criminal charges of prostitution and
ended up incarcerated in our system but
Mandy also had a dream
Mandy’s dream was to be a mom and Mandy
tells the story that it was one of these
times that she had men in jail and she
was served papers and these papers
indicated that her father now clean had
filed for emergency custody of Mandy’s
son because his father also was not
doing well and she describes that this
was the moment that she was ready for
something different
ready for change and so Mandy opted in
to the catch court program so instead of
being in jail she was placed on two
years of probation and in our program
and she had a lot of expectations that
go along with this program catch court
participants have to come to court every
single week to check in with the judge
they have to meet with their probation
officer and other catch staff on at
least a monthly basis they have to
provide urine drug screens very
regularly to hold them accountable
they’re referred to typically
residential treatment so places where
they’re living and receiving treatment
and then they also have these things
called stay away sparts of town they’re
not allowed to go to or people frankly
they’re not allowed to see which is
really all about their safety so it’s a
difficult program but there are also a
lot of benefits to the program probably
to me most importantly is that Mandy and
others like her gain a family a
community of support a courtroom of
women who say over and over we’re gonna
love you until you love yourself and
then they go do it
all of Mandy’s needs basic needs were
met for the two years she was in our
program and a partnering nonprofit
called freedom ala carte Google them
later provide a ton of supportive
services including
making sure that every single week when
the women come to court they’re fed they
bring a meal every week they plan a
monthly outing so that these ladies can
learn how to have fun again it’s been a
long time if ever and they also train
and provide a mentor who will journey
alongside each woman while she’s in our
program and of course one of the biggest
benefits of successfully completing the
catch Court program is that your charges
are dismissed unsealed now
ceiling or expungement of records is a
big deal
that’s our criminal justices way of
saying it’s as if you never committed
this crime we trust you and that’s a
woman who can go on to find housing and
employment it changes everything for her
so Mandy today is employed in the
recovery field she has her own place her
own car a thriving relationship with her
son and she says over and over you know
I love being an independent woman so it
worked for Mandy but does it work in
general and is it worth it well let me
just break down one example one cost for
you because over and over again if you
compare legal costs and medical costs of
traditional justice models and
restorative justice models over and over
again restorative justice will win but
just one example is that the annual cost
of incarcerating a woman in the state of
Ohio is just over $26,000 now that same
woman instead of being incarcerated go
to treatment where she has shelter all
her basic needs are met and she’s
receiving good care and that’s just over
$10,000 that’s a significant taxpayer
benefit recidivism now that’s one of
those fancy words that just means
someone’s likeliness to reoffended
commit the same crime the lady’s really
just describe it as about you know you
get stuck in a lifestyle that you want
to get out of but you can’t and this is
a population women involved in
prostitution that are
known for their high recidivism rates so
nationally it’s about 80 percent for
women cotton prostitution for catch
court women and this is true for women
who have been in this program for two
weeks or six months or the full two
years our recidivism rates are just 29%
it’s a significant decrease now you may
have heard or sorry said in another way
of a hundred and fifty seven women who
have had the opportunity to complete the
program in the two years that they
before they got to catch Court those 157
women picked up just over 1200 criminal
cases that’s a chunk in the two years
that they spent with us just 67 and in
the two years following 350 that’s a 75%
decrease of criminal cases so you may
have heard that we have a mass
incarceration issue in this country and
it’s true according to the national
institute of justice we have 2.3 million
americans who are incarcerated today and
our national recidivism rates are just
about 68% we have a problem and we need
programs like catch court and other
similar to be replicated if we’re gonna
do anything about these numbers if we’re
gonna help people get unstuck from a
life they don’t want to be in finally
when I think of catch court when I think
of Judge Herbert I think I’m another old
story and it’s a biblical story actually
which regardless of your religious
affiliation I think extends an important
lesson it’s the story of a known
prostitute from a particular village who
enters a room full of religious leaders
and judges and there’s a kind judge in
the room he notices her he notices not
just what she’s done but also the things
that have been done to her he knows a
lot about her life and he accepts her he
welcomes her and it changes everything
for her but you know he notices
something else he notices the room
of judges and he asks this question to
them he says do you see this woman now
it’s kind of a silly question because
everybody notices when I prostitutes in
a room she clearly doesn’t belong hint
right but it’s as if he’s asking a
deeper question like do you really see
this woman
and so forgive when you’re driving down
the street and you see a woman who may
be caught up in the prostitution
lifestyle what are you gonna see are you
gonna see the crime that she’s
committing are you gonna see the crimes
that have been committed against her are
you gonna see the dreams that maybe she
had as a little girl do you see this
woman thank you
[Applause]
when I was a senior in college I had a
professor in a particular class that
asked us to go around the room and share
where we wanted to be in 10 years so I
listened to my classmates say things
like I want to be married and have a
couple of children maybe open up a
private practice things you would expect
and when it came to me I simply said as
if it was the most natural thing for me
to say I want to work with prostitutes
now my short asian male professor I
think didn’t quite know what I meant by
work with prostitutes
he began blushing pretty badly it felt
really awkward and we just moved on from
there I know what you’re thinking what
causes a person to want to work with
prostitutes
well the unfortunately common but
derogatory words that we use to describe
prostitutes today words like whore slut
temptress these are the words that I
felt as a child and a young teenager
described me not because I had been
involved in prostitution but because I
had experienced several doses of sexual
abuse between ages five and ten many
sexual abuse survivors feel that they’re
to blame for their abuse they feel like
there’s something wrong with them I felt
like there was something wrong with me I
felt like I was some kind of
eight-year-old temptress now fortunately
I had an amazing family and came from a
privileged background I had access to
all the resources and therapy that I
needed to heal from my trauma and that
dream I had as a senior in college it
came true almost ten years exactly later
I was hired by the Franklin County
Municipal Court to work with prostitutes
I have the privilege of coordinating a
program called catch court for survivors
of prostitution and human trafficking
it’s a problem-solving court or a
specialized docket and these kinds of
courts have been around in our country
since 1989 you may be familiar with
things like mental health courts or drug
courts and they all follow this
restorative justice philosophy that says
because crime hurts justice should heal
so catch which is just specifically for
survivors of prostitution and
trafficking stands for changing actions
to change habits it does not stand for
caught at the corner hooking remember
that so in 2007 what happened was there
was a shift in a policy and this shift
brought a lot more attention to domestic
violence cases and what was what would
happen is that many more facts and
images photographs of domestic violence
victims were presented to judges who
were presiding over these cases so one
day in 2007 Judge Paul Herbert was
presiding an arraignment court here in
Franklin County and he had 37 domestic
violence cases which meant that he spent
a big chunk of his morning looking at
images like this domestic violence
victim after victim and after these
cases were done
his next offend inque min to the
courtroom and the case file said
prostitute and he looked up at her and
he describes that for a split second he
saw all the images he had been looking
at all morning he saw a domestic
violence victim he was really curious
about that it took a wise judge to be
curious not just about the crime and
what she had done but about what had
happened to her so you know he literally
like goes back to his office and
Google’s Criminology of prostitution to
try to learn about the background of
these women and I want to tell you a
little bit about the backgrounds of
these women this is based on about a
sampling of about 95 women who’ve come
through our program so generally
speaking they come from a low
socioeconomic status generally they
haven’t even completed high school and
no one to this point has been a college
grad
do it most of them are moms many of them
have already been involved in the mental
health system in our community many of
them began using drugs at a very young
age
somewhere between al ages ages 11 and 14
typically but all of them by the time
they get to us have been diagnosed with
a substance use disorder without a doubt
these are women who have extensive
trauma in their background again out of
95 89 of them report having experienced
sexual violence the same number it’s
meant partner violence and 88 the
unexpected loss or death of a loved one
so you tell me is this woman a criminal
is she a victim what I can tell you from
working with these women is that there
are threads of both in their stories
there are threads of trauma and
victimization and also threads of
criminal thinking and so we need a sort
of trauma-informed justice to respond so
catch court seeks to provide both
trauma-informed care and also
accountability because both are needed
this is me the little girl the little
girl who was sexually abused as a child
and again I’m very aware that if I
didn’t come from privileged and having
had access to resources that my story it
could have ended up a lot different it
could have ended up a lot like Mandy’s
this is Mandy Mandy grew up in an
addicted household she was verbally
physically sexually abused as a child
she ended up homeless and bounced around
from family member to family member she
got involved in a pretty intense
romantic relationship at the age of 13
she attempted suicide as a teenager
ultimately she began using drugs to cope
with everything she’d experienced got
involved with prostitution
and then she was recruited by a pimp on
the east side of Columbus and in her
time in the life she had her jaw broken
and a gun to her head she was raped and
of course eventually she began picking
up criminal charges of prostitution and
ended up incarcerated in our system but
Mandy also had a dream
Mandy’s dream was to be a mom and Mandy
tells the story that it was one of these
times that she had men in jail and she
was served papers and these papers
indicated that her father now clean had
filed for emergency custody of Mandy’s
son because his father also was not
doing well and she describes that this
was the moment that she was ready for
something different
ready for change and so Mandy opted in
to the catch court program so instead of
being in jail she was placed on two
years of probation and in our program
and she had a lot of expectations that
go along with this program catch court
participants have to come to court every
single week to check in with the judge
they have to meet with their probation
officer and other catch staff on at
least a monthly basis they have to
provide urine drug screens very
regularly to hold them accountable
they’re referred to typically
residential treatment so places where
they’re living and receiving treatment
and then they also have these things
called stay away sparts of town they’re
not allowed to go to or people frankly
they’re not allowed to see which is
really all about their safety so it’s a
difficult program but there are also a
lot of benefits to the program probably
to me most importantly is that Mandy and
others like her gain a family a
community of support a courtroom of
women who say over and over we’re gonna
love you until you love yourself and
then they go do it
all of Mandy’s needs basic needs were
met for the two years she was in our
program and a partnering nonprofit
called freedom ala carte Google them
later provide a ton of supportive
services including
making sure that every single week when
the women come to court they’re fed they
bring a meal every week they plan a
monthly outing so that these ladies can
learn how to have fun again it’s been a
long time if ever and they also train
and provide a mentor who will journey
alongside each woman while she’s in our
program and of course one of the biggest
benefits of successfully completing the
catch Court program is that your charges
are dismissed unsealed now
ceiling or expungement of records is a
big deal
that’s our criminal justices way of
saying it’s as if you never committed
this crime we trust you and that’s a
woman who can go on to find housing and
employment it changes everything for her
so Mandy today is employed in the
recovery field she has her own place her
own car a thriving relationship with her
son and she says over and over you know
I love being an independent woman so it
worked for Mandy but does it work in
general and is it worth it well let me
just break down one example one cost for
you because over and over again if you
compare legal costs and medical costs of
traditional justice models and
restorative justice models over and over
again restorative justice will win but
just one example is that the annual cost
of incarcerating a woman in the state of
Ohio is just over $26,000 now that same
woman instead of being incarcerated go
to treatment where she has shelter all
her basic needs are met and she’s
receiving good care and that’s just over
$10,000 that’s a significant taxpayer
benefit recidivism now that’s one of
those fancy words that just means
someone’s likeliness to reoffended
commit the same crime the lady’s really
just describe it as about you know you
get stuck in a lifestyle that you want
to get out of but you can’t and this is
a population women involved in
prostitution that are
known for their high recidivism rates so
nationally it’s about 80 percent for
women cotton prostitution for catch
court women and this is true for women
who have been in this program for two
weeks or six months or the full two
years our recidivism rates are just 29%
it’s a significant decrease now you may
have heard or sorry said in another way
of a hundred and fifty seven women who
have had the opportunity to complete the
program in the two years that they
before they got to catch Court those 157
women picked up just over 1200 criminal
cases that’s a chunk in the two years
that they spent with us just 67 and in
the two years following 350 that’s a 75%
decrease of criminal cases so you may
have heard that we have a mass
incarceration issue in this country and
it’s true according to the national
institute of justice we have 2.3 million
americans who are incarcerated today and
our national recidivism rates are just
about 68% we have a problem and we need
programs like catch court and other
similar to be replicated if we’re gonna
do anything about these numbers if we’re
gonna help people get unstuck from a
life they don’t want to be in finally
when I think of catch court when I think
of Judge Herbert I think I’m another old
story and it’s a biblical story actually
which regardless of your religious
affiliation I think extends an important
lesson it’s the story of a known
prostitute from a particular village who
enters a room full of religious leaders
and judges and there’s a kind judge in
the room he notices her he notices not
just what she’s done but also the things
that have been done to her he knows a
lot about her life and he accepts her he
welcomes her and it changes everything
for her but you know he notices
something else he notices the room
of judges and he asks this question to
them he says do you see this woman now
it’s kind of a silly question because
everybody notices when I prostitutes in
a room she clearly doesn’t belong hint
right but it’s as if he’s asking a
deeper question like do you really see
this woman
and so forgive when you’re driving down
the street and you see a woman who may
be caught up in the prostitution
lifestyle what are you gonna see are you
gonna see the crime that she’s
committing are you gonna see the crimes
that have been committed against her are
you gonna see the dreams that maybe she
had as a little girl do you see this
woman thank you
[Applause]
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