Recidivism Among Women Charged With Prostitution Who Participated In At Least Six Months Of Residential Rehabilitation Compared To Community Controls.

Abstract

This study was designed to determine the efficacy of an intensive residential rehabilitation program for women charged with prostitution compared to women charged with prostitution in the same county who never participated in this program. Using Illinois State police records we compared what percent of women had any criminal charge following their participation in the rehabilitation program, and the time to that first charge, for the 16 women who completed the program versus 98 women who had never entered it. We found that 50% of the program vs 79% of the non-program participants had at least one criminal charge (p<0.05) corresponding to an incidence rate ratio of 0.43 (95% CI, 0.18 to 0.89) favoring the program. To our knowledge, this is the first comparative study of a program designed to help women leave prostitution.