Project ROSE stings end in Phoenix, AZ, Monica Jones responds
As you may you know I was arrested under an anti-prostitution sting, by the name of Project ROSE. This program used police and prosecutors to round up sex workers, and people profiled as sex workers, forcing them into diversion programs using coercion. The head of this program is Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, a social work professor at Arizona State University School of Social Work in Phoenix, Arizona.
Using coercive tactics such as those central to Project ROSE contradicts everything social work stands for. Social workers are supposed to defend social justice and free will. Using police to round up sex workers robs them of their self-determination and dignity and thus goes against the code of ethics of social work.
As of today, I have been advised that no more Project ROSE events are planned, and Project ROSE will not be conducting any more police stings, hopefully permanently. This is a milestone in the community’s struggle to end the injustice of Project ROSE and rights violating policing of this kind. We still have further to go. The next milestones to reach are getting the “manifestation statute” off the books and getting my conviction overturned.
Thanks to the ACLU, SWOP-Phoenix and Best Practices Policy Project for their work for social justice and all my other supporters in Arizona and beyond.
Monica Jones, November 26, 2014
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