Central Arkansas prostitutes taking business to Web
Posted on Monday, February 11, 2008
Arkansas prostitutes are trying some new things to avoid getting busted.
For instance, they will ask a potential customer if he’s a police officer, thinking a real officer can’t lie. Wrong. Police say they are under no legal obligation to identify themselves as officers.
Or, police say, prostitutes will scout out a meeting place before a client arrives, thinking they can spot law enforcement. That tactic didn’t work for the two escorts arrested April 25 in Little Rock at a hotel near Interstate 30, according to a police report.
Now, increasingly in central Arkansas, prostitutes are moving their business from the street or through an escort service to unregulated Internet sites. Internet ads are using terms like “diamonds” or “roses” instead of “dollars.” Those posting the ads don’t realize that as soon as they exchange a condom for money, they’ve committed the crime.
That has some novelty to it, at least locally. Online prostitution through Web sites like the popular Craigslist — home to free ads for people to sell or give away anything from real estate to a 1980 s console television — has become commonplace in larger cities, with places like Seattle, Chicago and Pittsburgh making arrests of dozens at a time. In central Arkansas, it is a recent phenomenon — one authorities said they are just beginning to see and understand.
“Who says a girl can’t have it all !!!” reads one ad posted Jan. 31 under the name “Lacy” in the “erotic services” section of Craigslist’s Little Rock Web site, one of 71 showing at one point last week. “200 Outcall (residential ) … 200 Outcall non residential.” Then comes the kicker, right after the not-so-subtle reference to money: “This is not an offer for prostitution and any donation accepted is for my time, travel, and companionship only !” Some are more direct. A woman calling herself “Angel” posted an ad in the same section Jan. 27, saying, “i cannot wait for me to come to you and bring much sexy time on your privates call me for a good time. Email me first for a list of my rates and services.” Posting an ad is free, and is limited only somewhat by geography. The Little Rock page’s listings offered women in Hot Springs, Arkadelphia and Jonesboro. The site also offers ads placed by men, but largely the men seek — rather than offer — sexual services.
North Little Rock Police Department investigator R. C. Cox said posting the ads doesn’t violate any law, and some of the euphemisms people use to disguise a money-for-sex proposition are cute.
“But then you get there in that hotel room with the woman and she’ll say, ‘Oh, honey, did you bring me my roses ?’” he said. “You pull out your money, and she’ll say she wants to count up her ‘ kisses,’ then she’ll grab on you and drop a condom on the bed, and that’s when it’s time to make the arrest for prostitution. They’re not in there to have a cup of tea.” The crime is a misdemeanor, often handled with a citation and the prostitute’s immediate release unless she has other charges pending against her or warrants for her arrest.
Cox said he charged four such women in 2007, all of them in sting operations after contacting the women through Craigslist and directing them to a hotel. North Little Rock police charged 28 women with prostitution overall, not including charges against people seeking the services of prostitutes.
Little Rock police declined to discuss any of their investigations.
“We use many tools to investigate crimes,” department spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings wrote in an e-mail. “Because of ongoing investigations, we do not reveal our methods of investigation or investigative tools that we use. I will tell you we use the Internet to investigate a wide variety of crimes.” Records obtained through the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, however, show that Little Rock police used the Internet to set up stings that netted charges against three prostitutes in 2007, at least one officers found through Craigslist. Little Rock police filed prostitution charges 87 times last year, not including charges against customers.
Julie Albright, a sociologist and professor at the University of Southern California who studies sex and Internet relationships, said a number of women who sell themselves online are “sexual entrepreneurs.” Without a pimp and without the stigma of trolling the streets, waiting for anybody to pull over and say yes, these women feel they have more control, Albright said.
They also have access, she said, to a better clientele. Business travelers in hotels are the perfect targets for an online prostitute, she said: anonymity on both sides, a safe location to meet, no wife or girlfriend to catch them.
“People can do things in the shadow of the Internet and not be seen,” Albright said. “That feeling of safety has value.” The prostitute who Little Rock officer Jason Harris arranged through Craigslist to have detective James Johnson meet at an upscale downtown hotel late Sept. 12 quoted a fee of $ 200, according to Johnson’s report.
They also seem to get plenty of work, Cox said.
“In post-arrest interviews, the women we charged told us they had another four or five encounters lined up for later that night,” he said.
Still, the bulk of prostitution in central Arkansas is street prostitution, records show, with certain stretches of Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, Stanton Road and Asher Avenue in Little Rock being the most popular spots. Prices for some sex acts can be as little as $ 10 or $ 12, more often falling between $ 20 and $ 40. When they do get arrested, street prostitutes often have on them various hints of recent drug use, like pipes for smoking marijuana or crack cocaine, records show.
No prostitute arrested on the streets of Little Rock in 2007 asked for more than $ 53, records show.
“There are a lot of women out there in this line of work who don’t know how to value themselves,” Albright said. “They also don’t know what else they could be doing to help themselves into a better situation, so they’re stuck.”
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