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Budget analyst finds First Offender Prostitution Program lacks clear goals and full cost recovery
Summary
A management audit presented to the Government Audit & Oversight Committee found the First Offender Prostitution Program (FOPP) lacks a single statement of purpose, measurable performance targets and fees do not cover program costs; the District Attorney's Office said partners are refining objectives and will report back.
Severn Campbell, a budget analyst, told the Government Audit & Oversight Committee that her office’s management audit of the First Offender Prostitution Program (FOPP) identified three findings and eight recommendations, including that the program has no single, well-defined set of goals and lacks quantifiable performance measures.
The audit, done at the Board of Supervisors’ request and reported to follow U.S. Government Accountability Office standards, noted the program spent roughly $178,000 in fiscal 2008–09 and “does not provide the kinds of services that the NIJ would say would be responsible for reducing recidivism,” Campbell said. The report concluded the program does not provide long-term or intensive services or follow-up and that neither the DA’s office nor the police department can fully track recidivism outside San Francisco.
Campbell said the report recommends the DA’s office and the police department define the program’s goals—whether to reduce neighborhood impacts, reduce men’s access to paid sex, or a combination—and adopt performance measures and tracking. She said the DA agreed with seven recommendations and disagreed with one, the latter concerning whether the program should develop a work plan that allocates resources to Internet-based decoy operations.
Paul Henderson, chief of administration at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, told the committee the office relies on a National Institute of Justice (NIJ) evaluation and believes the program has reduced recidivism and been cost-effective historically. Henderson said the NIJ report shows a recidivism rate “under 5%,” and defended the program’s sliding fee structure as a tool to keep the program accessible.
Henderson also said some police activities used by the program occur as part of normal prostitution-abatement work and argued those costs should not be attributed entirely to FOPP.
Supervisors and staff agreed there is common ground: Campbell and DA representatives said they would work to better align goals, performance measures and accounting of resources. The committee requested a follow-up report from the budget analyst and the DA’s office within four weeks on agreed analytics and next steps.
Public commenters urged tougher penalties for repeat offenders and stressed neighborhood impacts. The committee filed the audit and asked for a joint report back from the budget analyst and the DA’s office.
