The photos of the three prostitutes were a glaring depiction of the pain they had suffered. They appeared on the front page of the March 28 Denver Post and had been taken from “the book,” a compilation of arrest photos of prostitutes, arranged in such a way that the changes wrought by life on the street could be easily discerned. The women age with each arrest; their bodies bear the scars of blows; their eyes show despair and anger.
I was grateful to the writer for the investigation, and to The Post for shining a light on this horror. I also anticipated a deluge of mail from readers, so I read the letters to the editor diligently. Why was there just a single response?
These women were among the 538 prostitutes that Denver Police rounded up last year. They’re locked up, jailed and then released. The cycle is repeated again and again, the misery of their lives unwitnessed. They die young, often unloved. Many streetwalkers are a throwaway people whose only constant companions are cops, judges and jailers.
The booking photos, taken by a Denver cop, moved County Judge John Marcucci into working with a small number of these women as part of the Chrysalis Project, a drug- court program to help prostitutes. The mystery is why there aren’t more books, and why more prostitutes aren’t involved in drug rehab programs.
I laud the anonymous police artist; Judge John Marcucci; Councilwoman Carol Boigon, who’s working on a residential treatment center for prostitutes; and members of the Chrysalis Project. Hopefully more people will now be energized to take up these women’s cause.
Men make laws to punish women for things men do to them. We may publicize photos of johns in Aurora, hoping their shame is a form of deterrence. But we forget a fundamental truth: for a man, the discomfort is temporary. The tragedy for these young women is intractable and sometimes permanent.
They were once someone’s baby. Many were sexually abused. Incest, rape and other sexual assaults were part of their childhood. Poverty, homelessness, domestic violence – all add to the misery and terror of their lives. Most are psychological cripples.
Only a sick mind makes a girl opt to sell her body, exposing herself to the vagaries of an uncertain life among pimps and violent strangers. They certainly don’t enjoy walking the streets.
The Post’s article profiled 46-year- old Judy Hines, a cocaine addict who was sexually abused as a child. Hines began drinking at 10, and was a mother at 15. Her father murdered her 16-year- old sister before killing himself. She’s had 39 prostitution arrests and is now undergoing therapy for addiction.
The solution is to take better care of families, remove kids from abusive homes and do what we can to prevent childhood sexual assaults. Rather than fewer social workers, we need more, better paid workers. Once severely damaged, these children require very intensive therapy, which is so far unavailable. We choose to be tough on crime and mindlessly jail and punish the wrong people.
Prostitution’s other faces include human trafficking, child sex rings and other crimes against the person.
Women in Heidi Fleiss’ little black book are procured by the rich and powerful; they cater to the upper classes. For them, arrests are rare. We tolerate this deviant behavior because it’s high above the streets, in more opulent rooms. It’s a criminal double standard that cries for remedy, for justice.
The book should be published, so all can see it and other cities can use it to train cops and to persuade lawmakers, judges and prosecutors that every time we jail these women we’re corroborating with their childhood abusers. Most need therapy, to be convinced they’re lovable and worthwhile human beings. Let’s teach them how to earn a living without selling their bodies.
Above all, we need to care.
Pius Kamau of Aurora is a thoracic and general surgeon. He was born and raised in Kenya and immigrated to the U.S. in 1971. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.
