Medina is a mostly residential city of approximately 2,900 residents in Washington state, located in Eastside, King County, WA. The city is on a peninsula in Lake Washington, on the opposite shore from Seattle, WA. While prostitution is not a significant issue in the city, instances of its occurrence have been reported. Among the more serious crimes associated with the city’s commercial sex market is child sex trafficking.

Loss of employment is a consequence of buying sex in the city. For example, in October 2008, a Medina police officer allegedly coerced a woman to engage in sex with him in exchange for dropping the charges of driving with a suspended license and possessing a small amount of marijuana. According to reports, the Medina officer stopped the woman after running her license plate and discovering that she was driving with a suspended license. Upon pulling her over, the officer noticed that the woman had a small amount of marijuana in her car. He told the woman, “she was sexy, and he could make the charges go away.” A week later, the individuals met at a pub in Issaquah and then returned to the officer’s home, at which point the woman reportedly told the officer she did not want to engage in sex acts with him. According to reports, the officer responded by pushing her down on the bed despite her protests. The woman told investigators she complied because she had “a lot to lose.” The woman reported the incident to Issaquah police in February 2009, and the Medina officer was arrested for extortion 2nd degree and official misconduct. As a result of the investigation, the officer officially resigned in October 2009.

John School Programs

Additionally, King County has had at least four known john school programs. The first known john school in the county operated from 2006 to 2007. Sex buyers could avoid significant criminal charges if they paid a substantial enrollment fee, attended educational classes, and avoided re-arrest. The course, which included lectures from health professionals and formerly prostituted women, also addressed the growing presence of trafficking networks in the region. By discussing the long-term impacts of sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation on victims and their families, the program hoped to educate sex buyers about the potential consequences of purchasing commercial sex. The program was a one-day classroom experience modeled after the San Francisco First Offender Prostitution Program (FOPP). Although the program was not renewed beyond its pilot period, in 2015, a similar john school was launched in Seattle. In 2019, the program was transferred from the Organization for Prostitution Survivors (OPS) to the Lantern Project and modified. Its description may be found here.

Buyer Beware Program

In 2014, the King County Prosecutor’s Office launched a new initiative designed to reduce the demand for prostitution, change the attitudes and behaviors of men arrested for patronization, and eliminate the cultural acceptance of the purchase of sex. The Buyer Beware initiative was a partnership between eight police departments and city attorneys’ offices across King County that were shifting their emphasis to pursuing sex buyers. The initiative was led by the Organization for Prostitution Survivors and the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Participating community organizations include Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST), Stolen Youth, and Seattle Against Slavery. Participating law enforcement agencies included the King County Sheriff’s Office and the police departments of Seattle, Des Moines, Kent, Federal Way, Bellevue, and Renton.

Buyer Beware brought together local prosecuting authorities, community service organizations, and survivors to implement a comprehensive strategy to reduce demand for commercial sex and facilitate an exit from prostitution. The Buyer Beware program model emphasized prosecuting sex buyers and connecting prostituted people to services. The original goal in 2014 was to reduce demand for commercial sex by 20% in two years.

The program’s approach is essentially the “Nordic Model” or “Equality Model,” which decriminalizes selling sex and criminalizes the actions of pimps and buyers. This model can be accomplished without changing prostitution law by making discretionary decisions not to arrest and prosecute prostituted or trafficked persons, even if selling sex remains illegal in state law and local ordinances. Additionally, the Buyer Beware program includes John Schools, neighborhood action, and public education. The key elements of the program are:

• Referring sex buyers to “Stopping Sexual Exploitation,” a comprehensive intervention program.
• Collecting fines from arrested sex buyers to fund services for prostituted people.
• Reducing arrests and prosecutions of prostituted persons in favor of referral to services.
• Expanding effective services to assist prostituted people in leaving the life.
• Forming an alliance of public and private employers committed to implementing policies and practices against sex buying.
• Educating high school and college students on the harms of commercial sexual exploitation.
• Conducting social media campaigns to educate young men on the harms of sex buying.
• Changing cultural norms surrounding the purchase of sex by involving a variety of community sectors, such as public health, education, business, media, and criminal justice.

The program planned to launch an online public education tool in which advertisements “pop up” when sex buyers put certain terms into search engines. Although the mechanism for deploying these advertisements was not disclosed, when implemented, the advertisements would “link to information about prostitution-related penalties and services for men who need help to stop buying sex.”