In Seattle, the police department started advertising on Craiglist and arrested nearly 100 men seeking to pay for sex, along with more than a dozen prostitutes.
"The local effort began earlier this year, when the Seattle vice squad rented a room at a downtown hotel and, acting as customers, sought the services of prostitutes advertising in weekly papers and Craigslist. They ended up arresting eight women in an Oct. 19 sting."
. . .
"So police expanded the undercover operation, focusing this time on men paying for sex. Officers rented a downtown condo, used photos of female undercover officers, and advertised on Craigslist and in The Stranger and Seattle Weekly.
"We ran our own escort service out of there," Sano said. '
. . .
As of Wednesday night, police had arrested 94 men and 14 women and seized $14,500 in cash. One of the women arrested in the operation was a juvenile who police said was being forced into prostitution. Said Sano: "We're going to pursue that."
I wonder what if TPD is considering the same here.
Hookers on corners create a negative environment for neighborhoods. They bring in drug dealers, thefts go up, and johns proposition non-hooking women living in the area. We're all familiar with this. It took TPD a while to agree that this is something they should work to change.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure hookers who are never seen on corners but make "house calls" are going to create the same sense of outrage that the street-walking variety do.
Where crimes are non-violent in nature, I would prefer TDP focus their limited resources on issues that affect communities first.
agreed-
ReplyDeleteadults can arrange whatever sexual rendevous they would like over the internet as far as i'm concerned and this certainly doesn't cause as much of a crime risk and burden on our neighborhood as street prostitution -
I use craig's list for housing.
ReplyDeleteIf people want to "hookup" so be it
doesnt seem to me that the avenue they use should be blamed for anything criminal
hell look at the creative loafing pages for wilderside of life ads!
Craig's list has other sites on it for good things