There are two kinds of academic studies: studies that tell us what we already know, and studies that are wrong. Here is one case where the smart folks in academia went to a great effort discover what is common knowledge.

Read more at The Las Vegas Review Journal…

‘ADULT SERVICES’: Craigslist helps sell sex online
Prostitutes lure customers using Internet site
By LAWRENCE MOWER

The advertising Web site craigslist has been a boon to prostitution locally and nationally, allowing the world’s oldest profession to flourish virtually unchecked, a new university study contends.

“It’s this whole world of online brothels, but nobody is monitoring it anymore,” said Alexis Kennedy, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Craigslist allows people to post classified ads for everything from cars for sale to help wanted to “adult services.” And just as the site has revolutionized the way people sell their trinkets and bookends, it has changed the way men and women sell sex, according to Kennedy.

The site has been under fire by law enforcement officials across the nation almost since its inception because of the ease by which it connects prostitutes to johns. The site’s founders have bowed to some of the pressure. Last year craigslist removed its “erotic services” section, where prostitutes could post ads for free, and replaced it with “adult services,” where posting an ad costs $10.

But Kennedy’s study provides a glimpse of just how rampant — and brazen — prostitution is on the site.

She enlisted eight graduate students to target the Las Vegas “erotic services” section and randomly pulled ads over two months in 2007. They sampled and analyzed 12,444 ads, roughly 12 percent of the total “erotic services” ads posted in Las Vegas over the time.

The results revealed that prostitutes operate on the Web with little fear of law enforcement. For example:

• Nearly all of the ads included photos of what appeared to be escorts or escort agencies.

• More than 80 percent of the ads included phone numbers, most with a 702 area code.

• More than a third of the ads specified prices for services.

Craigslist isn’t alone in what has become the newest way to facilitate paying for sex. Many more sites exist, and some, like craigslist, also cater to individual cities. One such site that focuses on Las Vegas allows people to post graphic reviews of escorts, including how much the reviewer paid for the “session,” whether it was in-call or out-call and whether the escort tried to sell additional services to the reviewer.

Some of the reviews are for local massage parlors, and the reviewers state the name of the “masseuse” and the name and address of the business.