Crackdown on S.J. prostitution turns to the Web:
This article from a Northern California newspaper has some pretty sobering statistics about craigslist prostitution.
Determining just how many prostitutes are operating on the Web is tricky. The erotic services section of Craigslist’s Stockton-area section has had nearly 5,115 posts since Aug. 13, many of them duplicates. Some have been posted by those who offer services for free.
For reference, there were 998 posts for furniture for sale by owner in that period.
The trend locally mirrors what’s happening in the nation’s largest cities. Craigslist erotic services postings totaled 97,243 in New York, 27,174 for Los Angeles and 7,435 for Chicago in a similar timeframe.
craigslist’s resident mouthpiece had the usual to say.
Craigslist relies on its users to report posts that are deemed inappropriate, wrote Susan MacTavish Best, a spokeswoman for the Web site, in an e-mail response to questions.
The Web site’s staff is not legally obligated to monitor the millions of posts it receives each month, but it does remove prohibited content – anything unlawful or pornographic, according to MacTavish Best.
Police occasionally come knocking about posts.
“We are contacted by law enforcement from time to time,” MacTavish Best wrote, “and Craigslist cooperates fully with the police and other authorities.”
Yet they keep their erotic services section up and running and continue to facilitate in all forms of prostitution and possibly human trafficking.
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