School of Social Work prostitution diversion program examined

Twice a year, the ASU School of Social Work and the Phoenix Police Department collaborate on a prostitution diversion program called Project Rose. Prostitutes are approached on the street and online, and those who offer to sell sex are taken into custody. Offenders are not taken to jail, however. They are taken to a Phoenix church, where they are offered an array of social services, including housing, health care, substance abuse treatment, food and clothes.

The Arizona Republic took an in-depth look at the collaboration, talking to its supporters and detractors.

The approach has drawn criticism from those who consider prostitution a legitimate lifestyle, and one that doesn't require being rescued from.

That stance puzzles one of the co-founders of the project, ASU School of Social Work associate professor Dominique Roe-Sepowitz. She is the director of the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research at ASU.

"I feel like we've had this push now that says we look really pro-arrest, and the idea is really not arrest at all," Roe-Sepowitz told the Republic. "It's about removing barriers and removing blockades to getting out of this lifestyle, if that's what that person wants to do. So it's an opportunity."

The story also provides a glimpse at the success rate of the program. Less than one in three who accept diversion are deemed compliant with meeting the terms of the agreement.