Oakland has increased child prostitution problems

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BAY AREA
FBI, police in prostitution sweep

Internet influence cited -- federal database launched to track pimps, aid enforcement

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
San Francisco Chronicle


More than 140 pimps, prostitutes and their customers were arrested in the Bay Area during "Operation Strikeout," which was scheduled to coincide with the crowd-drawing festivities of Major League Baseball's All-Star Game in San Francisco.

Despite the operation's title, none of the 50 suspected prostitutes and seven alleged johns arrested in San Francisco's Tenderloin and Mission neighborhoods from July 6 to 8 had any connection to the July 10 baseball game at AT&T Park, said Capt. Tim Hettrich, who heads the city's narcotics and vice divisions.

The multi-agency operation, coordinated by the FBI under its 4-year-old Innocence Lost initiative, targeted the increasing trafficking and exploitation of child prostitutes in the Bay Area. Some officials referred to the trend as an epidemic spurred in part by the growth of the Internet.

Officials from the FBI and several police agencies that participated in the operation were among those who spoke at a press briefing Monday in Oakland. They sought to dispel what they said is a perception that prostitution is a victimless crime.

"Our young people are having their lives and their youth taken away from them," said Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums.

Police officials reported arresting at least four girls under the age of 18, including a 16-year-old who brought her 8-month-old daughter to a South San Francisco hotel with her after an undercover officer posing as a customer responded to her ad on craigslist.com.

The girls, officials said, will face charges but will be steered toward programs in an effort to help them. Just a few alleged pimps were arrested in the operation, though Oakland police said officers have developed leads to a major trafficking ring.

The operation began when Oakland police officers at last year's Hot August Nights in Reno, which celebrates classic car culture, noticed many Oakland pimps and prostitutes there. Pimps, police said, move women and girls to well-attended events around the country, including the Super Bowl and the All-Star Game.

Undercover officers trolling the street and the Internet -- on sites such as craigslist.com, eros.com, lovings.com and sfredbook.com -- made the arrests July 6 to 12 in areas including San Jose, Campbell and Fremont.

In Oakland, where 42 people were arrested, a suspected prostitute shot at an undercover officer Wednesday in the 3000 block of Myrtle Street, police said. She missed and was arrested.

Roland Holmgren, an Oakland police spokesman, said the city has become one of the worst for prostitution in the western United States. Hettrich, the San Francisco captain, said two juvenile prostitutes have been killed in the city in the past five years, one by a pimp and the other by a customer.

As part of the operation, the FBI said it has established a database open to local police agencies that tracks pimps based on their street names, their mode of operation and other factors.

Nola Brantley, who co-directs a nonprofit group in Oakland that helps sexually exploited youth, said at the press briefing that she has seen an increasing number of underage prostitutes. Most, she said, are in foster care or group homes, and almost all of them have been victims of past abuse. Their movements, she said, are controlled by violent, brainwashing pimps -- an increasing number of whom are also women.

Brantley said law enforcement officials have made improvements in recent years in dealing with child prostitutes by trying to help rather than punish them, but could do more.

She said more resources should be directed at intervening in the lives of underage prostitutes, and she called for the creation of special treatment facilities for girls who are arrested. Now, she said, girls often quickly return to their victimizers, including family members. In some cases, pimps take them from group homes and put them back to work.

When she meets child prostitutes, Brantley said she first tries to cut through their shame by telling them, "Don't be embarrassed. Any story you tell me, I've heard a thousand times before." Then, she said, she discusses their role as victims, explaining to them that she sees them as exploited and abused, even if they do not.

"Some of them, they don't even know what it means to be raped," Brantley said. "Some just look at it as a risk of the job."