Gauging Online Prostitution

I found this article intriging and I thought about a New Orleans evacuee who left the "Big Easy" after Hurricane Katrina, in order to perform "Oral Sex Acts" on a prostitute. That same evacuee was later convicted of residential burglary in Pierce County Superior Court in the State of Wash9ngton. He took the long ride to find a prostitute. He did not use craiglist for his ventures but he later used Myspace and a chatline, In Tacoma, to find other prostitutes to perform oral sex on.

When it comes to finding clients, the modern streetwalker lets her fingers do most of the work, the click clack of a computer keyboard replacing the sound of stiletto heels pacing the pavement.

Just how much illicit e-commerce is going on in the area is hard to measure. But after Fife drew attention to the issue recently when it passed an ordinance targeting online sex solicitation, we decided to set up an experiment to attempt to find out.

The Fife ordinance is the first in Washington to target Internet sex ads. And there are a lot of them. A quick check one day last week turned up more than 1,000 “escort” ads in the South Sound on one Web site, the free online bulletin board Craigslist.

Told of the large numbers of Internet solicitations we found, law enforcement agencies in other local jurisdictions said they’re aware of online flesh peddling, but have mainly chosen to target their limited resources at “real world” prostitutes who are disruptive to local businesses and residential neighborhoods.

Spokesman Lt. Dave Guttu said Lakewood police had done a couple of stings using Craigslist, but made relatively few arrests considering the time and manpower required.

“And there’s a lot of down time,” he said.

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department tried a Craigslist operation, but also found it labor intensive, spokesman Ed Troyer said. With only limited funding for vice operations, such operations won’t be a priority in the future, he said.

Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said, “We get a lot more complaints about prostitution on the streets.”

Police in other jurisdictions have set up sting operations on Craigslist. In Seattle last year, officers using a covert ad arrested 71 people, including a bank officer and a surgeon. A recent Cook County, Ill., operation rounded up 60 women.

So what The News Tribune wondered was: How many people in the South Sound are using the Internet to find pay-for-play sex? |Read on|