Linda Bardo knew the system wasn’t working when a stroll through her Curtis Bay neighborhood meant shielding children from the crude sight of sexual transactions.
“It’s pretty bad when you walk down the street and see four or five prostitutes in just a couple blocks,” said Bardo, 51, president of the Curtis Bay Community Association.
“We got to a point where we would call police, but there’s not a whole lot they could do unless they caught them in the act. Police were arresting prostitutes, and they were back out on the street four hours later.”
Fights broke out among the frustrated families and the prostitutes working the residential streets. “Johns” mistakenly solicited sex from community residents. Needles and condoms riddled their sidewalks.
In late 2006, Bardo helped form the Brooklyn and Curtis Bay Prostitution Task Force in hopes of saving her community and helping women who turned to the streets.
“The current way of handling this is not working, and if we can get these ladies help, that’s the key,” Bardo said.
Baltimore City’s court system sees 1,200 prostitution cases a year, not including men charged with solicitation, according to the city state’s attorney’s office.
Many of the cases involve repeat offenders, women who cycle through the system because of drug addiction, mental health issues or past trauma, said Jennifer Etheridge, chief of community justice initiatives at the city’s state’s attorney’s office.
She said a $70,000 state grant to create a prostitution court this fall to be modeled after Washington, D.C.’s court could enable women to receive drug treatment, counseling and job training instead of jail time.
The grant will fund a licensed clinical social worker to review prostitution cases and provide the offenders with appropriate treatment.
“It’s going to be very rare that it will come to incarceration,” said Etheridge, who will be the court’s prosecutor.
Baltimore City District Judge Charlotte Cooksey supports the new court.
“There are health problems, addiction, and many with HIV, AIDS,” Cooksey said.
“Trauma also is becoming more and more recognized as a condition that is prevalent in the women-offender population.”
Etheridge said the prostitution court also could pave the way for a “johns school” to provide health education to men charged with soliciting sex.
The school would be held on Saturdays to teach men about the risk of sexually transmitted diseases and the possibility of putting their partners at risk as well.
Bardo said her community understands the challenges facing prostitutes and wants to help them, while also removing the “johns.”
“These johns who come into the neighborhood are businessmen, husbands and fathers,” Bardo said.
“I feel like they have no respect for our neighborhood.”
