Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Anti-Prostitution Activities in Seminole Heights - Part 1

This is actually a continuation of a post that I began on May 3, 2005 with the Nebraska Avenue Stories Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. These outlined prostitution problems we faced in anecdotal form and some early attempts to deal with the issue by Seminole Heights residents.

This next series of posts will show the extent of prostitution in Tampa, Seminole Heights and Nebraska Avenue graphically and statistically, how it has been reduced dramatically and how Seminole Heights caused that reduction. Nowadays, Seminole Heights is no longer the place to find a prostitute, just a place to get arrested if you try.

The data I am presenting is from the Tampa Police Department, obtained from their Thematic Crime Maps and their Crime Statistics. The data only goes back to 2000.

Seminole Heights is composed of the following police grids: TPD District 2: 43, 44, 45, 46, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 59, 60, and TPD District 3: 69, 70, 71. South Seminole Heights is Grid 69. Southeast Seminole heights is Grid 71 and part of Grid 70. The rest is Old Seminole Heights.

This map shows the prostitution arrests (Johns and Prostitutes) from 2000 to 2005. Most occured on the Nebraska Avenue corridor (the black line to the east that runs parallel to I-275.) Seminole Heights Grid 52 (Hannah to Sligh) had 357 to 447 arrests in that time period. The next highest is just south of the City/County Line at Fowler Avenue. The third next is again in Seminole Heights in grids 45 and 44 (179 to 268 each)


Next we have data from 2000. Notice how it is spread all over the city, with the highest arrests in SH grid 52 with 107 to 161.


Next is 2001. SH grid 52 has (124 to 164) and grid 45 has (83 to 124).


Next is 2002. Almost all of Seminole Heights along Nebraska was evenly hit as the most arrests in the city (37 to 46 each)

**(2003 to 2005 will be posted tommorrow as it it late)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Something to note about grid 52 is that one corner has 3 motels (and a church). The Swan, Loma Linda, and Casa Linda motels are infamous for hosting hookers.

Also worth noting is that the OSH vehicle patrol started up in 2002 and the area began to lobby politicians to put pressure on the police to arrest hookers. This likely contributes to the sudden bloom of red in the 2002 map.

When they have a 2005 map, I'm curious to see how it looks. My bet is there will be no "red" squares at all.