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Police Using Technology To Bust Old Profession

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By BRUCE LAMBERT, The New York Times

Published: September 7, 2007

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - The eight women visited Long Island this summer along with vacationing families and other business travelers, staying in hotels and motels in commercial strips in middle-class suburbs such as East Garden City, Hicksville and Woodbury. Their ages ranged from 20 to 32.

Three had come all the way from the San Francisco Bay Area, one from Miami. Two lived less than 60 miles away, in Newark and Elizabeth, N.J., and two even closer, in Brooklyn.

All eight were arrested on prostitution charges here, snared in a new sting operation by the Nassau County police that focuses on Craigslist.org, the ubiquitous Web site best known for its employment and for-sale advertisements but which law enforcement officials say is increasingly also used to trade sex for money.

Nassau County has made more than 70 arrests since it began focusing on Craigslist last year, one of numerous crackdowns by vice squads from Hawaii to New Hampshire that have lately been monitoring the Web site closely, sometimes placing decoy ads to catch would-be customers.

'Craigslist has become the high-tech 42nd Street, where much of the solicitation takes place now,' said Richard McGuire, Nassau's assistant chief of detectives. 'Technology has worked its way into every profession, including the oldest.'

Investigators are now hunching over computer screens to scroll through provocative cyberads in search of solicitors.

In July raids, the sheriff of Cook County, Ill., rounded up 43 women working on the streets - and 60 who advertised on Craigslist. In Seattle, a covert police ad on Craigslist in November resulted in the arrests of 71 men.

In Jacksonville, an ad the police posted for three days in August netted 33 men. 'We got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hits' in phone calls and e-mail messages, said John P. Hartley, the assistant chief sheriff there.

Prostitution Is Flourishing Online

Sex and the Internet have been intertwined almost since the first Web site, but the authorities say that prostitution is flourishing online like never before. And while prostitutes also advertise on other sites, the police here and across the country say Craigslist is by far the favorite.

On one recent day, for example, some 9,000 listings were added to the site's 'Erotic Services' category in the New York region alone: Most offered massage and escorts, often hinting at more.
Law enforcement officials have accused Craigslist of enabling prostitution. But the company's president, Jim Buckmaster, said its 24-member staff cannot patrol the multitude of constantly changing listings - about 20 million per month.

'We do not want illegal activity on the site,' he said.

Experts say that under the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996, the ads are legal and Web site owners are exempt from responsibility for content posted by users.

While Buckmaster said Craigslist was no different from old-media publications that have long carried sex-oriented ads, law enforcement officials say its scope and format are useful to the sex industry. With listings for about 450 cities around the world, Craigslist claims to have 25 million users and 8 billion page views a month. Posting advertisements, except those in the employment and some housing categories, is free, as is responding to them by e-mail.

Web Site Has Changed Profession

The police say that Craigslist has changed prostitution's patterns, with people roaming the country, setting up shop for a week or two in hotels where they use laptop computers and cell phones to arrange encounters for hundreds of dollars, then moving on to their next location.

'They like to move around, that's for sure,' said McGuire. 'They're flying in from out of state because there is money here' on Long Island.

In Westchester County this spring, police in Greenburgh, Rye, Rye Brook and Elmsford formed a joint task force to investigate ads on Craigslist, resulting in 30 arrests. Some of those arrested were out-of-town prostitutes who booked many dates in advance, then whisked in for a busy couple of days, police said.

In Sandpoint, Idaho, population 8,105, R. Mark Lockwood, the police chief, said that an arrest this summer involving Craigslist 'was probably our first prostitution case since World War II.'

Amid the police crackdown, in a game of electronic cat-and-mouse, the authorities say that Web site users who get wind of enforcement sometimes post warnings to thwart investigators.

The Craigslist modus operandi provides mobility, helping prostitutes keep a few steps ahead of the law, law enforcement officials say. It also affords a degree of anonymity - if they are caught, being away from home makes an arrest less embarrassing.

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