Explanation
In March of 2007, the City Attorney established the Culture of Prostitution Initiative in order to develop non traditional approaches to address street prostititution in the City of Columbus. As part of this initiative, the City Attorney created the John Education Program in July of 2007 to educate persons who have solicited the services of prostitutes on facts and statistics about prostitution, health, family, and community consequences of prostitution, and sex addition. Participants in this program also hear the testimony of former prostitutes and the effect that engaging in prostitution has had on their lives.
In January of 2009, the Prostitution Diversion Program was created to serve individuals who have been charged with criminal offenses stemming from providing or offering to provide sex for hire. To qualify as a candidiate for the prostitution diversion program, individuals must have no more than two prostitution related charges and/or convictions on their criminal record and no mor than one drug offense charge and/or conviction. The goal of this program is to encourage participants to discontinue the prostitution lifestyle by connecting them with area resource providers and organizations that can assist with housing, employment readiness, drug addiction counseling, and sexual and physical health information and testing.
The purpose of this legislation is to give the City Attorney the authority to impose and collect administrative fees in accordance with a schedule to be established by the City Attorney for the administrative costs that are incurred in connection with this programs as well as to provide for testing for sexually transmitted diseases for individuals charged with prostitution related offenses. Administrative fees will be collected from participating individuals, except that the City Attorney could waive such fees in appropriate circumstances at his discretion. The fees imposed will be collected by the City Attorney...
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