An interesting article about the online pay-for-sex scene. Read more at redOrbit.com…

Internet Fuels Virtual Subculture For Sex Trade

The Internet has spawned a virtual subculture of “johns” who share information electronically about prostitution, potentially making them harder to catch, according to a new study co-authored by a Michigan State University criminologist.

The research by MSU’s Thomas Holt and Kristie Blevins of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte challenges the common perception that sex customers act alone and do not interact for fear of reprisal or scorn. The study appears in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

Holt, assistant professor of criminal justice, said today’s Web-savvy johns use the Internet to solicit prostitutes and to provide each other with warnings of prostitution hot zones and stings, which can hamper the efforts of law enforcement officials.

But the more police become familiar the johns’ Web activities, the more it can help them zero in on the perpetrators, Holt added.

“The growth of these deviant subcultures has made it more difficult for law enforcement,” said Holt, who has helped police devise prostitution stings. “On the other hand, it gives us a new opportunity to use the way the offenders communicate to better target their activities.”

The study analyzed prostitution Web forums in 10 U.S. cities with the highest rates of prostitution arrests: Atlanta; Baltimore; Chicago; Dayton, Ohio; Elizabeth, N.J.; Forth Worth, Texas; Hartford, Conn.; Inglewood, Calif.; Las Vegas; and Memphis, Tenn.

In the Web forums, the johns provide detailed information on the location of sexual services on the streets and indoors, as well as ways to identify specific providers, information on costs and personal experiences with providers.

The open nature of the forums led the johns to carefully disguise their discussions with a unique language, or argot, based largely on code and acronyms. This argot may help johns and sex workers to avoid legal sanctions and any social stigma associated with participating in the sex trade, the researchers said.

Read more at The Dayton Daily News…

Are the suburbs seeing more prostitution?
By Kristin McAllister

The world’s oldest profession is starting to find a new home in suburbia, thanks to popular classified advertising Web sites, most notably, Craigslist, law officials say.

“The Internet and sites like Craigslist certainly are changing things,” said Capt. Chris Anderson of the Troy Police Department, where in early August, police arrested a couple for running a home-based prostitution business advertised on Craigslist.

“The cases we see usually, almost exclusively, are to support a drug habit,” he said.

Anderson said the increase in Internet use for prostitution has prompted the department to change operations to now include continuous monitoring of online activity in Troy.

Other communities are seeing cases of prostitution from women posting to Craigslist, backpage and social networking sites, including Kettering, where Montgomery County Organized Crime Unit officers in March arrested two women who posted on Craigslist erotic services, and in Miamisburg, where Dayton police detectives in May arrested a woman at the Red Roof Inn after contacting and meeting her following her posting to the site.

Both communities, however, are not reporting a rise in the number of prostitution arrests.

Read the whole article at Whiotv.com…

Craig’s List Ad Leads To Prostitution Bust

Dayton police found a personal advertisement on Craig’s list and hours later, two young women were arrested on prostitution charges.

The arrests happened early Thursday morning at the Dayton Motor Motel, where the women allegedly agreed to have sex with each for money.

According to police reports, the women said they did not realize that charging a fee to let others watch them engage in consensual sex as a couple, was doing anything wrong.

An undercover officer said he first saw a red flag Wednesday, when he was surfing the personal’s on Craig’s List. He said one advertisement promised to let men watch while two women engaged in sex.

The detective called the number listed and said the 21-year-old woman answered. According to police reports, she promised to let the officer watch her have sex with her 20-year-old girlfriend for $500.

Authorities said police arranged a meeting with the women at the motel Wednesday night. Once the duo showed up, records say the two women began engaging in sex acts for the agreed upon fee, and that is when police arrested the couple on suspicion of prostitution.

According to police reports, one of the women said she got the idea for the Craig’s List ad at her job at a men’s club where the women work as dancers, and apparently were not making enough money.

Police focus attention on the client side of the street scene.  Read the whole story at The Middletown Journal.

New prostitution ordinance is tougher on johns
Those caught trying to solicit sex on Dayton’s streets won’t be able to drive away.
By Lucas Sullivan

Veteran vice detectives were setting up surveillance as a young woman walked up and down East Fifth Street, peering into cars with lone male drivers.

It wasn’t long before a man pulled up next to her in a 1994 Green Pontiac about 3:40 p.m. on Jan. 5, and the woman, a known prostitute, got in the car, according to a police report.

The man told detectives he took her to smoke crack in exchange for sex, the report stated. Both were issued summons to appear in court and May was able to drive off in his Pontiac.

But starting as early as late spring, offenders like this man will no longer be able to drive away if caught soliciting a prostitute within the city.

Police Chief Richard Biehl hopes by then his officers will be trained to enforce a new city ordinance that allows them to impound automobiles used in crimes involving sexual activity.

Offenders will have to pay a towing fee on top of a fine to recover the car. City commissioners passed the ordinance in October.

“We are hoping the possibility of losing your mode of transportation will deter some from engaging in this illegal activity,” Biehl said.

Officers make nearly 450 prostitution-related arrests per year, according to police records.

Undercover stings have yielded little results in deterring prostitution. Vice detectives often arrest the same prostitutes again and again and can recognize them from their unmarked cars, according to police reports.

The final chapter for an Ohio working girl who continued seeing clients after she was diagnosed as having HIV.  UPI.com reports…

Prostitute jailed for soliciting with HIV

An Ohio prostitute was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday for continuing to ply her trade in spite of being infected with the virus linked to AIDS.

Vickie West asked the judge who sentenced her to allow her to move to Arkansas where she has relatives, the Dayton Daily News reported.

“I’m not unsympathetic to your plight,” said Common Pleas Judge Mary Lou Huffman. “My greater concern is the danger to the public.”

West was arrested in March after she solicited an undercover police officer in Dayton. A jury found her guilty of two felonies, both involving prostitution by someone who has tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.

West has a long criminal history, including five arrests and three prison terms for selling sex while HIV positive, the report said. She was featured in 1993 Daily News story on HIV-positive prostitutes that inspired the law she is being punished for breaking.