Buffalo Police Department

W o r k a b l e S o l u t i o n s t o t h e S u m m a r y P r o b l e m of S t r e e t The Problem: The Allentown area of P r o s t i t u t i o n in B u f f a l o , NY Buffalo, NY experienced a persistent, high concentration of 911 calls and arrests for Judge's Commentary prostitution, as well as longstanding comThe Buffalo street-level prostitution project plaints from community groups that prostistood out for several reasons. First, the projtution created traffic congestion, noise, litter, ect presented evidence that the surface issue, harassment of residents and declining propstreet-level prostitution, was connected to erty values. Residents felt threatened by other problems-drugs, assaults, and neighjohns propositioning women living in those borhood decay. Second, problem analysis neighborhoods and often observed sexual was multi-faceted, including arrest data, transactions performed in parked cars, recidivism data, resident surveys, interviews empty lots and alleys. Business people in with prostitutes, and interviews with the commercial districts cited loss of sales "johns." Third, it was clear that the project's and attraction of a criminal element (i.e., analysis phase informed the subsequent drug trade) as concerns arising from street choice of responses. In POP projects, this logprostitution. In 1997, the Prostitution Task ical connection between analysis and Force (PTF) in Buffalo, NY received a grant responses is often missing or not clearly and began working to reduce the incidence explained. Fourth, the Buffalo project impleof street prostitution in the area, mented multiple responses, ranging from arrests targeted at johns (because the analyAnalysis: Analysis was conducted of all sis revealed that they were more susceptible three parts of the crime triangle — offender, than prostitutes to deterrence) and arrests of victim, and location—and consisted of surrepeat offenders, to environmental changes veys and interviews with prostitutes, johns, at hot spots, to a one-day school for convictresidents, police officers, and businesses, ed johns and a longer-term rehabilitation Analysis of the problem clearly revealed that program for convicted prostitutes. Fifth, the arrest was a deterrent for johns but not for assessment phase demonstrated rather conprostitutes. Arresting the johns rather than clusively that the responses really were the prostitutes became a key strategy, implemented (including much longer senProstitutes reported that they were supporttences for repeat offenders), and that the ing drug habits or children, and lacked the incidence of street-level prostitution was education and work options to leave the reduced substantially. Moreover, the assessbusiness. Analysis also showed that certain ment demonstrated that the prostitutes were locations within the target area were not merely displaced to other parts of the "hotspots" particularly vulnerable to prosticity, nor were they displaced to the most tution activity. Interviews with community likely replacement offense, shoplifting. members helped to determine when and where the prostitution problem occurred In all, the Buffalo prostitution project and which solutions to the problem they stood out as a good illustration of the SARA found acceptable, problem-solving process, with an interesting range of responses and dramatic results. Response: A Prostitution Task Force (PTF) used the results of the analysis and a review of effective strategies used by other munici-