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Prostitution arrests

FONDL
In case any of you haven't seen this:

12 arrested for prostitution ads on Web
Posted 9/9/2006 7:33 AM ET E-mail

LEVITTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Police in Bucks County have charged 12 women after an investigation into prostitutes who allegedly have been advertising on the website Craigslist.

After police received a tip in August about alleged prostitutes advertising on the site, investigators called cellphone numbers in local listings that advertised "GFEs" — girlfriend experiences — asking for payment in "ro$e$" or "125 donations."

The undercover investigators agreed to meet the women at motels, and almost all 12 were arrested within two minutes, he said.

Several of the women who were arrested had brought along their boyfriends, and five men were arrested on drug charges, police said.

Similar sting operations have led to prostitution charges against women in states including Maryland, New York, Oregon and New Hampshire.

Craigslist spokeswoman Sue MacTavish Best said the site cooperates with law enforcement and has a flagging system that allows users to bring prohibited content to the company's attention so it can be removed.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Levittown PA is a suburb just north of Philadelphia. There are lots of strip clubs in the area.


18 comments

Latest

FONDL
•
18 years ago
Maverick, there are a lot of little neighborhood stripclubs in southern Bucks County. Most of them are pretty inexpensive, and if you happen to run into the right girl you can have a lot of fun. And it isn't very far to a couple of decent NJ cubs from there either. Or several in north Philly.
maverick69
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18 years ago
FONDL guess I based it on my hometown area of NJ. But maybe I'm not to familiar with the Philly area. But as the previous poster stated, brothels would be OK. But lets call the fantasy camps.....LOL
FONDL
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18 years ago
Maverick, I guess it depends on how you define the area. If you define it as within 3 miles of Levittown there are only about 3-4 clubs, but you don't have to expand that distance very much to get to 10+ clubs. And I don't know if it's at all related to strip clubs or not in the area, who knows how many of the strippers also work as escorts or who many escorts started out in the strip clubs; I'm sure some did.

I don't think that prostitution will ever be formally legalized in any parts of the US other than where it is now. But I do think that enforcement efforts are declining in many areas and will continue to do so. Most such efforts aren't very cost effective and the cops have more important things to worry about. Which is why prostitutes are able to advertise so openly in most metropolitan areas.

I wonder if the growth in prostitution helps or hurts strip clubs? Or maybe has no effect.
maverick69
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18 years ago
If prostitution is legalized, my feeling is that it would be on state by state basis. Seems something of that nature would be regulated easier by the states than the feds. As long as the DOH [Department of Health] is involved, I think it could work. But there cant be no connection to the arrests in Levittown Pa to the strip clubs as I think most work out of the small motels which are used for residental cases as well for displaced families. Contrary to note that are quite a few strip bars in the area I disagree. From my travels there I've only noticed about 3 or 4 but certainly more motels.
FONDL
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18 years ago
And I agree with Yoda that if the industry were over-regulated that prices would rise. So I guess the answer to what happens to prices if prostitution is legalized depends on how you do it.
FONDL
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18 years ago
Yoda, I didn't say you said that, that's my interpretation of their actions - I interpreted their cooperation with LE to mean that they were opposed to prostitute listings. Otherwise why would they cooperate with LE to help arrest prostitutes? It just strikes me as odd, but maybe I'm making too much of it.
Yoda
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18 years ago
FONDL: Where did I say that Craig's list was opposed to the listings?
Mickkeyc
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18 years ago
I don't think Craigslist is assisting the effort, instead the article says they are "cooperating" with police.

And a review of their current listings reveals they are not opposed to such listings. Anyone can post anything they want on craigslist, but others can flag it and ask that it be removed.
Book Guy
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18 years ago
Yoda has a point. And yet, where EFFECTIVELY prostitution is legal in much of the world (Amsterdam, Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Patpong ficha-girls) the cost is MUCH lower than what it costs illegally in the USA for the same quality of girl and service.

Except in Nevada, where legal prostitutes have a cost that is roughly higher, and much higher in hassle, than similar illegal internet escorts in exactly the same location.

Maybe it's just the USA, where legalization leads to higher rather than lower expense. This would seem to suggest that the Republican de-regulation small-givernment argument actually DOES make sense ...
FONDL
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18 years ago
Yoda, if Craig's list is opposed to such listings why do they accept them? Seems to me that they even maintain a separate category for XXX services. Then they cooperate with LE to arrest their customers? Makes no sense to me.
Yoda
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18 years ago
FONDL: Craig's list is free. They are not helping to get girls arrested. Girls, and pimps, are doing stupid things like posting the cities they are set up in and, in some cases, the hotels they are working out of. CL has become a very unreliable place to look for sex recently as local LE is now watching it very closely. Stings are becoming more common and I haven't trusted it for a while. There have been busts in the Boston area related to CL for about a year now.
Yoda
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18 years ago
If prostitution where legalized the girls would have to submit to forced health testing, pay taxes and probably get licensed. The price will go no place but up. Of course, there will be girls who will still practice the worlds oldest profession "under the radar" and outside of whatever regulations will be passed. Their prices will remain reasonable as a means of competing. Honestly, I don't think much would change.
Book Guy
•
18 years ago
FONDL -- agreed that price would go down. But I don't think it would be so much because of the supply-demand change (though that could be related; and I do agree, more girls would be willing to do it, if it were safer and more "accepted, whereas the number of men who want to fuck a hottie is perpetually unlimited and independent of legislation). I think the price would drop simply because you'd be removing the middle-men. The higher costs nowadays are due to pimps and other "security personnel" extorting the ladies' "hard earned cash."
FONDL
•
18 years ago
Yoda, I posted this because some people here have talked about using Craig's List to find erotic entertainment, and as I recall you are one of them. And what got me about this news item isn't so much that girls were being arrested but that Craig's List apparently is helping in the effort, after taking the girls' money for ads. Sounds pretty shitty to me.

BG, I think legalization would lower costs because it would lower the girls' costs of doing business and would probably also increase supply more than it would increase demand.
Yoda
•
18 years ago
FONDL: I'm puzzled as to how prostitution arrests in hotels or motels have anything to do with strip clubs.
enquiz2001
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18 years ago
Maybe one day this will be viewed as a health department issue and not a law enforcement issue. If government were to tax this stuff we could probably cut out income taxes....
hugevladfan
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18 years ago
Uh yeah until Republican de-regulation allows a fly by night business operation to open up for a lil while with no real indication that the establishment is safe. Juss when the shit hits the fan and people start noticing this weird stuff growing all over their dick and balls there is no one to hold responsible because said business has already closed up and moved on. BTW I for one would be for legalised brothels for both men and women to indulge their fantasies. It'd be a heckuva lot less destructive than gambling, smoking or alcohol and people can't get enough of those activities. (Note: as someone who works in an environment where casino gambling is all around me there are numerous healthy ways to engage in both drinking and gambling).
Book Guy
•
18 years ago
Question -- do you think prostitution costs would go UP or DOWN, if it became legal and regulated?
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