Some Madison, Wisconsin hobbyists are blue these days.  Read more at The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel…

Online prostitution forum leads to arrests of 57 people
By The Associated Press

Madison police say they’ve cracked down on the sex trade by infiltrating an online forum popular among customers of prostitutes.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported that officers have arrested 57 people following eight months of monitoring the Web site.

Police Officer Jeff Pharo said he stumbled across the site while investigating a separate tip. He said the site offered updates of which prostitutes were walking the sidewalk, updates that he confirmed by driving by.

So he created a fake profile to establish himself, then began studying the comments of other people in the forum. The information led to dozens of arrests and citations.

Read more here…

Police Targeted Suspected Prostitutes, Johns
Fulton County Police Cleaning Up Fulton Industrial Boulevard
By Tony McNary

CBS Atlanta went undercover with the Fulton County Police Department’s Special Operations Unit Friday night.

They were on a mission to clean up Fulton Industrial Boulevard’s reputation for being a haven for prostitution.

“After several years of being tired of this we’ve gotten a new approach. It’s going to be a sustained effort to continue doing this day in and day out,” said Captain Wade Yates.

An undercover officer posed as a “John” and picked up three women who police said offered him sex for money.

Another undercover officer posed as a prostitute. She was on the street less than five minutes before someone tried to solicit her.

Though this study doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, it’s welcomed nonetheless. Read more at The Times-Colonist…

Good news: Johns are just normal guys
By Jody Paterson

A new study out of Simon Fraser University concludes that people who buy sex are no more prone to violence than anyone else.

Fewer than two per cent of the 1,000 respondents who took part in SFU sociologist Chris Atchison’s study reported ever having hit, hurt, raped or robbed the person they bought sex from.

Granted, that’s just them saying so. But Atchison noted in a Vancouver Sun story this week about his research that there was little reason for the respondents to lie, given that the survey was anonymous.

That his findings are provocative is an understatement.

“It’s an outrageous study and it really works towards normalizing sexual assault,” said Aurea Flynn of the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, which is the go-to organization in B.C. when media are looking for a quote from someone vehemently opposed to prostitution.

“I’m really angry about the emphasis on the compassion for johns that the study provides,” added Flynn, “and I’m very concerned about its impact on the continued normalization of prostitution in Canada because I believe prostitution is violence against women.”

A bargain is a bargain – the parties should honor it!  Read more at WMUR.com…

Police: Man Says Woman Refused Sex After He Paid For It
Man, Woman Both Charged With Prostitution

A man and a woman were charged with prostitution Tuesday after, police said, the man called them to report that the woman didn’t have sex with him after he paid for it.

Police charged them both with prostitution.

Police said the man called the Marlborough Police Department on Monday and reported that he had paid the woman and a third party $150 to have sex with him on Sunday night. The man called police after the woman failed to have sex with him, police said.

Read more at The Baltimore Sun…

Fighting prostitution one john at a time
By Peter Hermann

Bill Lehman watches the cars go by.

A red pickup truck heads south on Second Street, disappears, then returns heading north on Second Street.

“That red truck will be back,” Lehman says.

Sure enough, the same red truck passes Lehman seven times in 20 minutes on the same residential block in South Baltimore’s Brooklyn neighborhood.

Lehman calls out the plate number as Jessica Mazan jots it down in her log and Jessica’s mother, Nancy Mazan, grabs her binoculars to confirm the sighting.

This is how these homeowners spend their nights, standing in the cold, the heat, the rain, the snow, watching the cars go by. When they’re sure the driver is not lost but is, in fact, circling the block looking for a prostitute, they send the information to the Baltimore Police Department.

A sergeant reviews it, makes sure the plate matches the car’s description and fires off a letter informing the registered owner that the vehicle was seen in an area known for prostitution and that its driver was involved in suspicious behavior.

“It’s not to accuse them of a crime, but to let them know the community is watching,” said the Southern District police commander, Maj. Scott L. Bloodsworth.

The missive is called a “Dear John” letter, and since police revived this long-defunct program in May, the cops have sent out 75 such letters, about 50 to people who live in Brooklyn who apparently use their backyards and neighbors’ streets for sex. Several residents keep track of the cars, but Lehman, a 50-year-old city fire lieutenant, is by far the most prolific.

This is one weapon the city is using to drive hookers and the men who solicit them from what should be quiet city streets – not just in Brooklyn but along Wilkens Avenue in Curtis Bay and Washington Boulevard in Pigtown, where frustrated homeowners have gone a step further by videotaping pick-ups and posting pictures on the Internet.

The letters on official police letterhead shame the men, Lehman said, “especially if the wife gets the letter, or the boss gets the letter. I used to feel sorry for them but they are coming here and destroying my neighborhood.” He said men slow down constantly, mistaking female neighbors heading off to work as working girls, sometimes as early as 5 on a weekday morning.

Read more at NBC Augusta…

Craigslist used in undercover prostitution sting
By Christine O’Donnell

Seven men were arrested in a two day Prostitution Sting set up by the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office’s undercover team.

The sting started early Thursday morning and by Friday the following seven men were charged with pandering (soliciting prostitutes for sex).

The team, including an undercover female, listed an ad on craigslist under the “adult services” section.

“The ad itself doesn’t say I’m going to do this or that or anything, it just says adult services,” said one of the undercover investigators.

The investigators said posting a believable ad is easy; all they include is a picture and a phone number. There are dozens of ads for adult services in Georgia-Carolina.

In just a few hours Saturday six women put up new ads.

…

“Shortly after [posting the ad] the phone began to ring and guys would ask her what the rates were for her services,” the undercover investigator said. “All the guys that set up the appointments and came asked for some type of sexual favor or sexual act for a set amount of money. Once they paid her, they were taken into custody.”

This is the third undercover prostitution sting the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office has done this year.

The undercover investigator says all seven of the men are most likely back on the streets after posting a $1,300 bail.

The section now listed as “adult services” used to be called “erotic services.” Craigslist changed the name after Philip Markoff was arrested and charged with killing one of three women investigators say he solicited on their website earlier this year.

Read more at The Barrie Examiner…

Sex sweep nets 15 ‘johns’ in downtown Barrie

City police say a man was Christmas shopping when he decided instead to get his jollies: sexual services from a downtown hooker.

He was among the 15 males — one was just 16 years old — who have been arrested and charged with communication for the purpose of prostitution.

Twenty-three people have been arrested and charged after the Barrie police street crime unit used undercover officers during a four-day period to target suspected johns and prostitutes, as well as associated criminal activity.

Police said the suspected johns approached the prostitutes on bicycles, on foot and in vehicles.

The sting operation — which led to police laying 27 criminal charges and five drug charges — was conducted in the area of Toronto and Mulcaster streets.

Eight suspected hookers were arrested for communication for the purpose of prostitution. One of the women was found to be violating her parole and was sent back to jail.

A businessman in town for a convention decides to make his night a little more memorable, and winds up on the business end of a mickey and short his money & valuables.  We at Insider Escort Secrets tend to think this kind of stuff is overstated, but there’s no doubt that the legendary ‘trick roll’ is real.

Read more at The Las Vegas Sun…

Their valuables gone, like their ladies of the night
More than $2 million is likely be stolen in ’09 in ‘trick rolls’ in which a prostitute robs a client
By Abigail Goldman

People in the company of Clark County prostitutes collectively reported having $1.4 million in cash and goods stolen from them during the first nine months of this year — dupes of a larceny genre better known to police as the “trick roll.”

By year’s end, it’s estimated the total reported losses will exceed $2 million — almost double last year’s total, and probably a fraction of the real amount.

How many people file police reports, after all, when their prostitutes disappoint?

Enough, at least, for Metro vice detectives to determine the problem is getting worse, and assign two detectives to trick roll investigations exclusively. They’ve gotten roughly one case every day this year. In 2007 it was more like one a week.

That increase could have something to do with the economy. Fewer tourists with less money means supply exceeds demand. Prices drop and competition ratchets up for prostitutes, many of whom police say must meet nightly quotas set by pimps. Metro Sgt. Donald Hoier, though, says the problem picked up before the economy fell, simply because Clark County was saturated with sex workers and outlets for illicit entertainment.

When everybody scrambles for the same pool of money, bad seeds take short cuts.

Consider the reported losses Hoier reads from a list of cases: $10,000 in cash, casino chips and a laptop; $30,000 in cash and chips; $20,000 Rolex; $6,000 Rolex; $5,000 cash; and — perhaps the most interesting, a case Hoier can only hint at — $175,000 in casino chips.

These are preposterous amounts, which is probably why they were reported in the first place.

Sometimes these are crimes of opportunity. A watch is left out, a laptop is folded in the corner.

But there are prostitutes for whom sex is only a pretext to theft, and others who have no intention of sleeping with their clients, Hoier said. They know how to exploit angles and mirrors to see safe codes being punched, while others, Hoier says, actually become good at identifying the tones assigned to each number on the key pads.

“While he’s in the shower,” Hoier says, “she’s taking everything.”

Drugs are slipped into drinks. Clients are escorted to ATMs for payment, only to find their cards have been stolen by someone who surreptitiously saw the pin number. Two women come to one room and run lewd tactical diversion.

But sometimes it’s just a matter of violence.

Prostitutes have pulled guns. Pimps, waiting nearby, Hoier says, have beaten people just shy of death.

All of this is easier to accomplish when the target fits a preferred profile: intoxicated and alone.

Read more at The Las Vegas Sun.

Read more at BCLocalNews.com…

No ‘choice’ for women in the sex trade

As a frontline worker at Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter I am not surprised at the series of excuses men use to buy women.

I am happy to see a news article that focus on the “demand” side of prostitution – that is the men. Prostitution exists because of demand. If men stopped buying and selling women, prostitution would be abolished.

We believe that prostitution is a reflection and product of women’s inequality, not a free “choice.”

Thank you for highlighting the men who drive the prostitution industry.

And for highlighting the violence prostituted women face and also that so many of the women cannot live on the abysmal welfare rates and “choose” prostitution because there are no other economic alternatives.

Daisy Kler
Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter

Good manners never go out of style, guys.  Pick up the lady’s cab fare – you’ll be glad you did!

Read the whole story at The Journal-Sentinel Online…

Man arrested after refusing to pay prostitute’s cab fare
By Ryan Haggerty

Milwaukee police probably wouldn’t have arrested the man  if he had done just one simple thing: pay for his prostitute’s cab ride home.

The 36-year-old resident of Prospect Heights, Ill., was arrested at a south side motel last week after police said he and a prostitute he had hired got into a loud quarrel when he refused to pay her cab fare.

When officers arrived, they found cocaine powder on his  nose and upper lip, about $300 on him and $67,400 hidden in his minivan, according to police and a criminal complaint.

The man already had paid the prostitute $40 for sex, the complaint says. If he had simply picked up the cab fare, he probably wouldn’t have attracted attention, said Milwaukee police Lt. John Kaltenbrun, who is supervising the investigation.

“Why he would go and be so cheap and stupid probably had something to do with the cocaine,” Kaltenbrun said Monday. “You’ve got to love people, don’t you? Sometimes they amaze even me.”