Prostitutes use Web as new `street corner'

More work in suburbs, with cheaper motels, thin police resources

By Brendan McCarthy
Tribune staff reporter

September 13, 2006

Dressed in a revealing halter-top, the 28-year-old woman sits in handcuffs on a motel-room bed in Des Plaines. Nearby, undercover police officers examine her modern-day tool of the trade: an Apple iBook.

"Show us your Web site," demands Cmdr. Matt Hicks. "We know you are on there."

Such encounters underscore the new public face of an old profession. Instead of flashing their skin on a street corner, women can work from a motel, armed with a cellphone and a laptop computer.

Traditionally, prostitutes who billed themselves as escorts advertised in alternative weeklies, entertainment-oriented magazines and other publications. Now a simple Web site can be launched for less than the price of a print ad, authorities say.

"The Internet is the street corner of the 21st Century," said Sgt. Gary Darrow, head of special investigations for the Schaumburg Police Department. "It's easy, it's anonymous and it's free."

As a result, police throughout the suburbs say the Web is fueling a prostitution business that is both difficult to detect and hard to enforce. Prostitutes can easily be found online in cities such as Naperville, North Chicago, Joliet, Evanston, Schaumburg and South Holland.

Across the country, police are focusing on the Internet. In Pennsylvania, 12 women were recently charged with prostitution after an investigation into advertisements they posted online. Similar stings have been conducted in San Francisco, Baltimore, Oklahoma City and elsewhere.

And yet locally, at least, prostitution arrests are few and far between. The time and effort it takes to execute a successful bust, combined with the limited resources of many suburban departments, have long kept prostitution low on the list of priorities, some suburban police officials admit.

Police in Des Plaines, for example, handled more than 150 reports about prostitution in 2005 but made only three arrests, according to Hicks, who said that unless investigators conduct an undercover sting, it's difficult to gather enough evidence to press charges.

Prostitution is a Class A misdemeanor, so the end often doesn't justify the means, police say.

"To get a felony [charge], you'll have to go get her again" through a repeat offense, said Elgin Police Sgt. Jeff Adam. "That means you are essentially burning an undercover officer and an undercover car. Sure, a prostitution bust is exciting [but] ... it's not always worth the effort."

Many prostitutes flock to motels in Des Plaines and other northwest suburbs because of the proximity to O'Hare International Airport and major expressways, police said. Compared with Chicago, the suburbs offer less-expensive motel rooms--and smaller police departments.

It's impossible, authorities say, to calculate how many prostitutes are working in the area, but they estimate there are hundreds.

Records show they are both local and from out-of-state--with driver's licenses listing residences in Texas, Las Vegas, Virginia, New York, Minnesota and Michigan, among other places.

Several members of the Cook County sheriff's vice unit are assigned to prostitution cases, with officers regularly scanning the Internet, spokeswoman Penny Mateck said.

Arrest records from several northwest suburban police departments show that nearly all of the alleged prostitutes advertised on the Internet. And with some exceptions, most worked out of modest motels.

Robyn Few, founder of the San Francisco-based Sex Workers Outreach Project, said suburban prostitution rings are run in ways similar to any small independent business.

"The Internet gave women and men a tool to become their own boss," she said. "I look at prostitutes as entrepreneurs. People go into business for themselves."

Many prostitutes tour the country, staying in a motel in or near a city for one to two weeks at a time, Few said. Others work out of their homes or for regional sex services that use computers to advertise, land clients and make appointments.

"They have elaborate screening systems where they can virtually keep police out," Few said. "You need references, a number. The smart girls aren't getting busted."

One popular Web site within the sex trade, police say, is Craigslist, a top online marketplace that allows users to list items for sale--everything from cars to concert tickets.

There's also a section for "erotic services," where messages and racy pictures are routinely posted alongside offers of sex. To appear legal, the prostitutes request donations in return for services.

"At this moment there are 55 people alone selling sex in Des Plaines on Craigslist," Hicks said recently. "We check."

Jim Buckmaster, chief executive officer of Craigslist, said the erotic services were added to the Web site at the request of users as a place for legal escort services and massage parlors.

The users bear the burden of reporting inappropriate or illegal ads to site operators, he said.

"Experts will tell you that it is often very difficult to know by reading a given ad whether the service being advertised is legal," Buckmaster wrote in an e-mail.

He said Craigslist can't monitor each of the more than 10 million listings posted every month.

"We do not want illegal prostitution on Craigslist and are more than willing to assist law enforcement in their efforts to curtail it," Buckmaster wrote.

The industry thrives on young girls, many of whom are forced or coerced into prostitution and become victims of violence, abuse, exploitation and homelessness, said Brenda Myers-Powell, an organizer of the Prostitution Alternative Roundtable, launched by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

"Most people when you say prostitution, they think of [the movie] `Pretty Woman,'" she said. "That's not the case. This comes from kids, young girls, who don't have much choice in the matter."

Many of the women get wrapped up in drugs, which goes hand in hand with prostitution, she said.

In the case of the woman arrested in Des Plaines, police also questioned a 65-year-old Hanover Park man who was found sitting in a car outside the hotel.

"I've never been here before now," the man said, admitting he was the woman's next appointment. "It was on the Internet. It said $160."

The man wasn't arrested because he did not solicit the woman--police got to her first.

"Thanks for the lesson," he said.

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