Las Vegas counselors hope hard-hitting course reforms men who pay for sex

Angie Wagner

Saturday, Oct. 31, 1998 | 10:56 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - A man, a husband, sits at the end of a courtroom pew. Peeking from under the bill of his baseball cap, he glimpses images of dead prostitutes - some just teen-agers - flashing on the film screen. The trailer is gruesome: slides of women and men ravaged by sexually transmitted diseases.

Across the room, two dozen other men - sons, fathers, husbands, boyfriends - listen to the dangers of prostitution, hearing how it degrades women and even kills them. Words like "tricks" and "johns" dot the commentary.

All have visited prostitutes. Now they've come to face lectures and horror stories, guided by counselors who hope they'll also figure out why they paid for sex.

This is "John School," Las Vegas-style, where men caught paying for sex serve their sentence: An eight-hour class where they learn more about prostitution and, perhaps, something about themselves.

Based on a program in San Francisco, Las Vegas police and municipal court began the reformatory school last December with just 11 students. Since then, more than 600 men have taken the class. (Although prostitution is legal in some Nevada counties, it is illegal in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.)

The $350 class is anonymous and voluntary, but if they complete it, a conviction for soliciting prostitution won't appear on their record. That's an incentive - and a chance to educate the men. But why bother?

"The focus needs to turn to the demand side of prostitution," says police Lt. Carlos Cordeiro, who once headed the vice section. "Many prostitutes - they're on drugs, they're crack addicts. It's very, very difficult to change their behavior. The typical john is your next-door neighbor ... . There's a better chance to change his behavior."

As the class begins, the men appear angry, frustrated to be stuck. Some claim they have been wrongly accused. Many are from out of town, with a round-trip ticket within reach.

Hardly anyone talks, but they shift in their seats and ask questions when Detective Leon Glines shows grisly pictures.

"That's really sobering reality," says 37-year-old from New York, arrested in downtown Las Vegas. "It's at the brink of making someone sick."

Of course, he wasn't trying to pick up a prostitute, this man says. He just wanted to know why she beckoned him, but he couldn't explain why he stopped.

Another man hired a prostitute because, he says, with his girlfriend gone he had "idle time." His voice trails off: "If I was in the house and had something to do ... ."

A Hispanic claims "animal instincts" took over.

As the day wears on, the stories they hear turn horrific. Sally Huncovsky, a supervising probation officer at juvenile court, tells of teen-agers lured into prostitution by pimps.

"We've had girls that have had 500, 1,000, 1,500 sex encounters with strangers. These girls are basically slaves," she says. "What they think they gain is someone who loves them."

The men are silent. Afterward, Ms. Huncovsky concludes that many probably picked up a teen-age prostitute and didn't know it.

Plastic bags full of condoms circulate, but the men ignore them. At day's end, many condoms remain in the courtroom. They may not be able to explain to wives or girlfriends. Picking up prostitutes is a secret these men keep even from their buddies.

Reform won't come easily. Roxane Clark-Murphy, coordinator for the court's alternative sentencing, believes the solution is in changing the way men think.

"What makes you think there's a problem?" one asks her.

With a wife of 23 years and a 2-year-old son, he doesn't believe anything is wrong just because he used a prostitute for "self-gratification."

This man talks about how he works hard to provide for his family, how his marriage has changed over the years. "A lot of us are grappling with this issue," he says, glancing around.

But Ms. Clark-Murphy persists, talking about how men are socialized to provide for families financially. Emotional responsibility is never discussed. But they do talk about how, as youths, it was unacceptable for them to cry.

They become more talkative, and for the first time, others begin to look around. "What we're talking about," notes Ms. Clark-Murphy, "is changing behavior."

She can back that up, too: Only one man has been arrested again for the same offense since the program began in Las Vegas.

Something within the class has already changed. The men are talking, sharing, asking questions. They're from all walks of life - businessmen with wedding rings, teen-agers without jobs. All have a common denominator: None wants this humiliation again.

End Adv for Sunday, Nov. 1