Living off the land. Footloose and fancy-free. One night in December , while working a truck stop along Interstate 45, Tamara tried to sell to an undercover cop. A makeshift encampment was set up there, with dozens of bundled-up people milling around or sitting in folding chairs at card tables. The cop told Tamara she could either talk to the people there and get herself into a recovery program or she could go to jail. She chose talking.
The middle-of-the-night stakeout is part of PDI New Life, a Dallas Police Department program aimed at shifting prostitutes out of jail, off the streets, and into rehab, counseling, and job training. For higher-level misdemeanors, like actually offering sex for money, the women are still transported to jail, but can enter the program on pretrial release. There are church ladies camped out here, too. They bring a hot meal. The police department was investigating truck stops as possible staging areas for terrorist attacks involving massive wheelers instead of airplanes.
But instead of terrorists they discovered 1, prostitutes servicing the 2, trucks that cycled through every day. Many are not enchanted by the idea of being arrested and pushed into treatment. For that, there are ex-prostitutes to help. Tamara has oiled, straightened bangs and a serious forehead.
She takes big pauses as she talks. They are 40 times more likely to be murdered. Three-quarters have PTSD. Almost half have attempted suicide. Most are addicts, with histories of abuse and mental illness.
Still, locking people up for selling sex is more common than treatment. Felini says Dallas arrests several thousand people for street prostitution each year. In almost all states, prostitution is a misdemeanor, punishable by anywhere from a few days to two years in jail.
