Curbing prostitution a constant battle for Richmond-area police

Policing the world's oldest profession seems a never-ending battle in the Richmond area.

The hookers and the men who seek their services often change, but Richmond-area police say the supply and demand never abates, leaving police departments to constantly grapple with how to curb prostitution.

Chesterfield County police recently announced the arrest of more than a dozen men during a two-day undercover prostitution operation along Jefferson Davis Highway.

Like the hundreds of johns before them who have been arrested in Chesterfield's yearly prostitution stings, they were charged with sexually soliciting a female police officer posing as a prostitute. In the past eight years, Chesterfield has arrested 243 men on 506 charges during similar stings.

But are such efforts effective in deterring prostitution?

"If they're making approximately the same number of arrests each year, it would show that there is no dramatic impact," said Jay S. Albanese, a criminologist and a professor of criminal-justice studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.

"Obviously if there was a deterrent impact, there would be a declining number of arrests."

With one notable exception, the numbers change little from year to year in the Chesterfield roundup. About 30 men usually are nabbed, although this year's rain-hampered operation netted only 14, the lowest in at least a decade. Police made 36 arrests in 2007 and 33 in 2006 in the roundups.

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As Chesterfield ran its operation June 4 and 5, Richmond police were in the middle of their own anti-prostitution purge along a different stretch of Jefferson Davis Highway.

City police are taking a different approach, though, by focusing on the prostitutes themselves in a cleanup operation that will last through June.

Police arrested 31 street-level hookers during the first three weeks of the campaign that began May 22, said Capt. Steve Drew, commander of the city's 2nd Precinct.

Drew said the current effort, along Jefferson Davis between Harwood Road and Walmsley Boulevard near the Chesterfield line, is partly in response to two prostitute-arranged robberies in late April and early May.

"Prostitution is linked to so many other crimes," Drew said. "When we hit prostitution, we will oftentimes see a drop in property crimes, residential burglaries, thefts" and violent crimes. "For me, what I'm trying to target is the criminal activity that goes along with [prostitution]."

Drew said police seem to get better results when they focus on the supply side of prostitution rather than the demand side. "But we try to mix it up," he said. "A lot of it depends on what issues we're trying to address."

Officers in the 2nd Precinct conducted an operation in March that focused on the johns. Drew said the precinct averages eight to 12 anti-prostitution operations a year, depending on the level of crime and other factors.

The efforts can be labor-intensive, using as many as six officers for a small operation and 10 to 12 for a large one, Drew said.

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Area police seem to take varying approaches in fighting prostitution, but the efforts seem largely based on geography and a locality's socioeconomic makeup.

In Henrico County, for example, police rarely catch streetwalkers because of the geographic layout of the county, Lt. Doug Perry said. The majority of Henrico's anti-prostitution efforts are centered on escort-service listings and Internet advertising venues such as Craigslist.

"Maybe 10 percent of our enforcement efforts involve streetwalkers," Perry said.

Police in Henrico and Chesterfield frequently monitor Craigslist and other Internet sites, and they have conducted spot investigations based on intelligence or complaints.

Last Wednesday, Henrico police arrested five people in a sting operation that targeted women who advertised their services locally on Craigslist.com and Richmond.backpage.com, as well as escort-service operations listed in the phone book. A similar operation in March netted eight arrests.

In January, Chesterfield police conducted an Internet sting of their own, arresting seven men who, authorities said, took the bait in a one-day probe targeting online prostitution.

In addition, Chesterfield investigators broke up an Internet prostitution service in 2008 that was owned and operated by a local man who advertised his business -- Dream Dates for You -- on Craigslist.

"A clear trend is away from [street-level] prostitution activity and toward Craigslist, the Internet, online, that kind of thing," VCU's Albanese said. "Which is a lower risk because there's an opportunity to screen your customers, and the possibility of meeting them at a neutral site rather than a street corner."

In recent years, Richmond has led the way in prostitution-related arrests, charging 171 people from January 2007 through June 10 of this year, according to department statistics.

Chesterfield isn't far behind, with 153 arrests during the same period. Of those, nearly 80 percent -- or 121 -- were men. Henrico arrested 91 people during the same 2½ years.

The success of anti-prostitution operations can't be measured entirely by the level of deterrence it provides, although that is a goal, police say. Improving or maintaining a neighborhood's quality of life diminished by prostitution is equally important.

"Whether it deters or not, the problem's there, and we can't just let it stay there," Chesterfield police Capt. Lorrie Smith said. "If it's occurring in people's neighborhoods or maybe in front of hotels . . . where people come in from out of town, then to them it's a big problem."

Added Perry: "It's a quality-of-life issue, especially with streetwalkers. Nobody wants a prostitute and johns walking up and down in front of their business or home. We take it very seriously, and we think it's a legitimate use of police resources."

Contact Mark Bowes at (804) 649-6450 or .