Tempe police officer Adrianne Schmidlin flips open a navy blue binder in her patrol car, revealing several pages of Polaroid pictures.
She points to one of the pages of plastic-covered photos. These are the women she'll be keeping an eye out for tonight while she cruises Apache Boulevard.
Some are provocatively dressed. Some have pseudonyms like "Cherry" or "China" etched in red ink near their real names.
Schmidlin says she has the notebook so she can identify them more quickly if they try to lie.
They're just a handful of the women involved in prostitution who have been banished from certain areas of Tempe by the "Order Out" program.
The program has only been around for the past few years, but it's doing a better job combating the problem, said the Tempe Police department's spokesman, Sgt. Dan Masters.
"In the past, we would arrest someone, put them in jail, they would see the judge and be right back out on the same street and same street corner doing the exact same behavior once again," said Masters.
Under the program, those found guilty of prostitution are given unsupervised probation and are ordered to stay away from the areas in which they were caught; usually on Apache Boulevard between Rural and Price Roads, Masters said.
If they are found in that same area within a year following their sentencing, it's a violation of the court order and mandatory jail time is assessed.
According to Tempe municipal court records, in 2002, 55 women were arrested and charged with prostitution in the Tempe area. Thirty-four men were also charged. In that year, the average age of prostitution for females was 34 years old, and for males was 37 years old. Most faced several charges and some were even picked up just weeks following their initial court appearances.
But Masters said he believes the program has been effective against repeat offenders.
In 2003, the number of charges for prostitution dropped substantially. Only 17 women and three men were charged with prostitution; none of whom were arrested on prostitution charges in 2002.
"Historically, even here in Tempe and Phoenix, there are certain streets, certain areas where it's either developed a reputation or it's fostered into 'that's where you go if you want to be a prostitute,'" said Masters.
"It's been like that on Apache Boulevard for a long time," he adds.
A Rough Past
Twenty years ago, as she packed up a U-Haul truck to escape an abusive relationship, Barbara Strachan had high hopes for her future. She had a job offer in Phoenix and was looking forward to decent pay and the time to turn her life around. Back in Michigan, she had been addicted to cocaine and used prostitution as a way to fund the habit.
But it didn't take long for her to find out about the boulevard.
"Within a couple days of arriving here, I had found everything I had had back in Michigan," said Strachan, her voice lowering "Drugs. Apache Boulevard. The whole nine yards."
Today, Strachan is seated behind a desk in her Phoenix office. Pictures of her nieces and nephews are wallpapered across a corkboard. Her deep, rich voice echoes in the small room. She has light brown hair and passionate brown eyes smile from behind her glasses as she talks about her family. After years of leading a "dual life," going to school, yet getting high and taking money for sex, she's reconciled with her family.
After the job that brought her to Arizona didn't pan out, Strachan said she went back to what she knew-- prostitution and drugs. She began by working for an escort service and then danced nude.
One night in 1990, her ex-husband, who was also battling drug addiction and had become abusive, told her to leave.
"I knew exactly where I was going," said Strachan, "and I hit the streets of Tempe and Mesa with a vengeance."
She looks down as she recalls the horror of life on the street.
"I found out in my younger years I had been infected with an STD and was not able to have children," she said "I've been date raped, doped."
Once, she was even thrown out of a car after she was picked up on Apache Boulevard.
She speaks quickly, words blending together in a stream of consciousness as she tells the story.
"I was all scraped up, 21 cars passed me but would not help me and I was out there by myself
"But that wasn't enough," she adds "It didn't grab me. Once you're in it, it's really hard to get out."
She said she wasn't arrested for the first seven years that she was on the boulevard because she was "all over the place."
But, "between 1997 and May 25 of 1999, I was arrested at least 14 times," Strachan said.
Facing jail time, she said her judge showed her compassion and sent her to the Estrella jail in Phoenix to enroll in a diversion program specifically designed to transition individuals from prostitution to mainstream society.
"That's where I met the women of DIGNITY House," said Strachan.
She said she had heard about the group of women numerous times while going in and out of prison.
"They had been where I had been and they understood what it was like to be involved in prostitution," Strachan said.
A Sense of DIGNITY
The DIGNITY House Program allows up to five women to stay in a house together for a year while they participate in an intensive recovery program that includes counseling, substance abuse recovery, case management and emotional support. The program, currently has two houses, one in Sunnyslope and the other in Central Phoenix.
Founder of DIGNITY, Kathleen Mitchell, envisioned the program while serving time at the Durango jail for running an escort service in Phoenix. She was frustrated that there weren't any resources available to help her deal with prostitution.
"So while I was in jail, I wrote to the program coordinator down there and I told her I wanted a program for me," said Mitchell.
She wrote to organizations around the country trying to get information on diversion programs designed to work with formerly prostituted women.
"They sent me the stuff and I called... the program coordinator again and she came down, we sat on my bunk and spread all the paperwork out and said 'okay, let's start this program,'" Mitchell said.
She developed the acronym "DIGNITY" which stands for Developing Individual Growth and New Independence Through Yourself, and tells women "don't let your past dictate who you are, but let it become a part of who you become."
In 1997, the Central Phoenix home opened and Mitchell worked to give formerly prostituted women the opportunity to choose between an intensive diversion program or jail time in Phoenix. The city agreed and Mitchell created the program.
Strachan says her probation officer played a pivotal role in her recovery, gathering her college credits together from years ago and went with her on her first day at Phoenix College.
"She walked me through the door, because I got really overwhelmed with small things in the beginning," said Strachan, with a laugh.
After staying in the house for a little over a year, Strachan said she graduated from Phoenix College in 2002 and went on to earn a diploma from Northern Arizona University in 2003, where she received top honors. Now she's pursuing a master's degree in educational leadership to "be able to more effectively design, develop and implement meaningful programs in the lives of children that were the age I was when I got lost."
Now she works for the organization that helped her out of prostitution just five short years ago.
She speaks to community groups and groups at ASU to debunk the myths that perpetuate the "Pretty Woman" stereotypes.
Strachan said she tells students that she grew up in a good, upper-middle class family and had a value system instilled in her. Her slide into prostitution began at age 16. She was hanging out in bars with older men, drinking alcohol and snorting cocaine. Once they ran out of money for cocaine, and an older boyfriend coaxed her into taking her top off for some money. But she said she was coerced into more than just that and performed her first act of prostitution that night.
"Coming from the family I came from, that caused a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, a lot of ugliness, so I hung with these guys because I felt accepted by them," said Strachan.
While she was on Apache Boulevard, Strachan said she was with married men, and men who had girlfriends. She even went to fraternity parties at ASU.
"They'd take me [to] their dorm rooms, they'd take me to their apartments," Strachan said.
It angers her that the men, also known as "johns" aren't prosecuted as much as the women prostituting themselves.
"They haven't been held accountable for their actions," she said "It's always the girl that has to go to jail. You can do intervention with women in prostitution, but if you don't address the demand side, there's very little that's going to really, truly happen."
She believes both should be prosecuted.
In Tempe, officers have to witness the exchange of money to prosecute both.
"Often the john will be willing to cooperate with police and tell us what happened to keep from going to jail," Masters said.
Though prostitution numbers are dropping, Mitchell said it doesn't mean the problem is improving.
It's likely only having a "leaf blower effect" on the problem, Mitchell said.
"All they're doing is scattering them," she said "When they get real tough on Apache, they move up to University (Drive) in Mesa."
Mitchell believes the only real solution to the problem is intervention and offering services. She said she'd like to work with Tempe and Mesa to develop a program in the area, but hasn't yet contacted the appropriate people.
The program is also working on creating a group to educate those convicted of soliciting women.
We'd like to "give them the education about the realities of what happens to these women," Mitchell said.
While the DIGNITY House Program continues to expand and create new services, the Tempe Police Department has at least one idea to improve Apache Boulevard.
"There are plans moving forward to have a police substation built on Apache Boulevard near McClintock and Apache," Masters said.
"It's several years out, but I think ... with a police station on that block, that will certainly have an influence on not only prostitution but other activity that may be present there."
Masters used to work in the area dubbed "Northside" by the department. He knows many involved in prostitution came from good upbringings, though some have tragic stories.
"You'd see tremendous drug problems fostering that and lack of self-esteem," said Masters.
"Sometimes you wonder 'wow, how did they choose this?'"
Masters and Tempe officers like Schmidlin know where the problem areas are located. They can point out the drug-laden places, where stolen vehicles are commonly found, where weapons and money change hands.
Now two hours into her patrol shift on "Northside," Schmidlin prepares to check out a domestic disturbance call at an apartment complex.
"The hotels are a cesspool," she says, pulling into a parking spot.
"People are coming in and using it for drug deals, using it for making drugs, using it for prostitution."
"And you know, driving down Apache, you see which hotels you would want to stay at one night and which ones you'd never go near," she says, grabbing her phone as she gets out of the car.
"It's just a bad spot."
Reach the reporter at jgirard@imap.asu.edu.
