PHOENIX -- The men arrested on charges of picking up prostitutes in the recent "Desert Divas" busts have an alternative to jail: a class offered by Catholic Charities called Dignity.

"People who have been arrested for solicitation ... have a choice between doing an eight-hour program and going to jail," said Kate Royal, Dignity's coordinator.

Organizers call the program, which nearly 200 men complete each year, an eye-opening experience.

"The men come in with a certain kind of nudge, nudge -- wink, wink -- what am I going to get out of this day?" Royal said. "They come out with a completely different understanding of the realities of what's going on that they didn't have before."

The eight-hour course consists of lectures from vice squad officers, city prosecutors and therapists. The men also hear from former "johns" who lost everything because of prostitution.

Former prostitutes also speak to the men.

"The average age of entry into prostitution is 13, and the girls who are leaving their homes at the age of 13 are leaving abuse and neglect in the home," said Royal. "The men need to understand the girls aren't out there because they want to be, they are out there because they are trying to survive."

Royal said the program asks the men to imagine their 13-year-old daughters or nieces.

"'Would you want her to be out there prostituting her body?' They all say no, absolutely not," Royal said. "So we say, why someone else's daughter? These women belong to someone."

Royal said about 99 percent of the men who go through the program said they leave with plans to make better choices.

"A lot of [the men] come in thinking it's 'Pretty Woman' -- [an] even exchange, victimless crime -- and they leave with a sense of what reality is," Royal said.