Last updated on 02:29PM, Thursday, May 6, 2010
Kelly Tyne runs the Johns' School in SF. "Criminalizing the supply side of prostitution is ineffective." Photo by Alison Yin.
by Sarah Terry-Cobo
This is Part 4 of an eight-part, four-day Oakland Local investigative series on youth sex trafficking.
"I admit it: I'm a john."
The image of a john, "someone looking to pay for sex," often evokes the idea of a man in a car, trolling a street at night in a gritty neighborhood. But what most people don't realize is that johns are often just another face in the crowd.
One evening in early February, after a San Francisco panel on human trafficking in the Koret auditorium of the city's main library, an unnamed man confessed his story, disclosing his past to people who likely were strangers...
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As dozens of people filtered out of the auditorium, the man, who had shaggy salt-and-pepper hair and a bright yellow scarf, lingered at the back of the crowd.
"I admit it, I'm a john," he blurted out to the event organizer and MC.
He described his troubled childhood, living in group homes and being molested as a teenager. The molestation distorted his perspective on sexual relations, he said. Concerned this man might be looking for children to sleep with, the organizer found an FBI agent at the event and introduced him to the man in the yellow scarf.
SAGE School for Johns: Understanding the Demand
In San Francisco, the SAGE Project, or "Standing Against Global Exploitation," provides services to people trying to free themselves from commercial exploitation. It works with survivors of childhood sexual exploitation, and many employees identify as survivors of some type of exploitation. The group runs the First Offenders Prostitution Program, colloquially known as "the Johns' School," to help reduce exploitation.
"SAGE feels that if you make an effort to reduce demand, the need, or supply, will go down. Thereby sparing some individuals from being sucked into the matrix of hell that a life of prostitution looks like," said Kelly Tyne, director of men's services.
Tyne said SAGE employees acknowledge that criminalizing people who are involved in prostitution is counterproductive because it:
* Fails to promote public health
* Perpetuates exploitation
* Validates racism and socio-economic oppression
In particular, criminalization doesn't address what SAGE believes is at the root of the problem. Instead, the group focuses on reaching people who perpetrate the demand: johns, pimps and traffickers.
When Tyne talks about prostitution, he calls it exploitation. Sex is a commodity, and SAGE approaches the solution to sexual exploitation in economic terms. Simply put, if fewer people, "mostly men," purchase sex from exploited people, then fewer people, "mostly women," will sell sex.
Johns learn how they're part of the problem
The SAGE program allows first-time offenders who meet certain requirements to attend a daylong course at San Francisco's Hall of Justice and have their record wiped clean. Those arrested for soliciting sex from a minor are not eligible -- and upon conviction they are listed on the California sex offender registry.
Since SAGE launched the Johns' School in 1995, at least 12,000 individuals have attended the course. Attendees come from all walks of life -- there is no "typical profile" of a john, said Tyne. However, most attendees are men who tried to purchase sex from women.
A 2007 federally funded study showed that 95% of Johns' School graduates were not rearrested for prostitution in California.
"Yes. 95% of the individuals who attend the Johns' School are not rearrested in California for violating state prostitution laws." Tyne paused and emphasized, "It's a big deal."
Many SAGE employees are survivors of sexual exploitation, so they have a personal connection to the harm it inflicts, on individuals as well as communities.
Reducing demand: Not a typical solution
Elsewhere, much of the effort toward preventing the commercial sexual exploitation of children is a response to the crime.
Law enforcement agencies and several social service nonprofits offer basic services to victims, create tougher punishments for traffickers, and work toward regional collaboration among cities and counties. SAGE is the only local organization that directs its efforts to find what drives the demand for commercial sexually exploited people.
"The Johns' School is not about stopping prostitution in San Francisco. It's not," Tyne said with a shrug. "It's about reducing the demand for commercially sexually exploited individuals."
The role of SAGE, as Tyne puts it, is an educational focus on the demand: "Helping johns understand their role in terms of global systems of prostitution and exploitation, and putting money into services for directly affected prostituted individuals."
Many people begin the course feeling they were entrapped, Tyne says. But by the end of the day, they understand how their purchase of pornography is linked to child pornography rings flourishing on the other side of the globe.
Simply put, he said, individuals with power exploit those without it. Many of the clients SAGE works with do not "choose" a life of prostitution -- they are forced or coerced due to a lack of choices.
Representatives from SAGE say education is key to helping demonstrate that prostitution is not a victimless crime.
NEXT in this series: Part 5: Alameda County DA's Office: Crusade to Rescue Youth, Prosecute Pimps...
COMPLETE SERIES INDEX: Youth Trafficking in Oakland
This story was produced under a fellowship sponsored by the
G.W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism, a project of Tides
Center.
We also would like to thank Robert Rosenthal and California Watch for their support -- as well as our reporters Barbara Grady and Sarah Terry-Cobo, and photographer Alison Yin -- for their amazing work.
Support more independent quality reporting like this! Please donate to Oakland Local on Spot.us. We are seeking additional support for continued coverage.
About Sarah Terry-Cobo
Sarah Terry-Cobo's picture
Sarah is a freelance reporter and a 2009 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Latin American Studies programs. She specializes in science and environmental policy issues, but also has a keen interest in immigration and Latin American affairs. Her work has previously appeared in The Oakland Tribune, Forbes.com and GreenBiz.com. She is currently reporting and blogging for Carbon Watch, a joint venture of the Center for Investigative Reporting and Frontline/World. She researched and wrote the stories in Oakland Local's youth trafficking series with the support of a fellowship from the G.W. Williams Center for Independent Journalism.
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Solving Youth Trafficking: Educating "Johns" Curbs Demand (Series Part 4) | Oakland Local
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