General Reports

[RedLights 235]

To post a reply to a topic, select the Reply to this topic button on top or adding your post in Reply to this topic section at the bottom. 

 

You can also find Dayton escorts, streetwalkers, body rubs, strippers & strip bars, ts & male escorts from WikiSexGuide: http://www.wikisexguide.com/wiki/Ohio

[Guest Dayton street prostitutes]

Police can’t fix chronic prostitution

Many are in and out of jail, and can cost taxpayers $100K or more.

 

Source daytondailynews.com

By Lucas Sullivan and  Jacqui Boyle

Staff Writers

DAYTON — Dayton police say complaints from the community force them to continue a cycle of arresting the same prostitutes repeatedly, only to see them on the same streets days later.

“It’s a quality of life issue,” police Chief Richard Biehl said. “There’s a very strong relationship between street level prostitution and other crimes like robbery and drugs so you can’t just ignore it.”

Dayton’s prostitution problem is nothing new. Police make 350 to 400 prostitution-related arrests a year.

But despite the costs for arrests and jailing, numerous women trapped in a cycle of prostitution continue to head back onto the streets shortly after being released from jail.

Since 2006, Jennifer Sue Heard, 44, has been booked into the Montgomery County Jail 45 times, mostly on prostitution and or drug-related charges, serving 1,316 days. Factor in that it costs taxpayers $62 a day to house an inmate, court costs, HIV tests and police resources, and Heard’s public bill rises above $100,000.

Debbie Lynn Peak, 31, has been arrested 30 times and has spent 1,356 days behind bars since 2006, according to jail records. Her latest arrest came in March and she later pleaded guilty to loitering to engage in prostitution, a third-degree misdemeanor.

Uthona West, 24, has been arrested 36 times and has spent 801 days in jail since 2006. Peak and Heard declined to comment for this story. West could not be reached for comment.

Numerous programs with small budgets such as the Dayton Municipal Court Johns School — a program for men convicted of trying to buy sex — Oasis House, Recovery Now and Southeast Dayton Weed N’ Seed have struggled to make marginal dents in the problem.

Dayton’s streets are the focus of the problem, but sheriff’s records show that johns arrested there come from all over the region.

The city, desperate for a new solution, floated the idea in 2008 of applying for $1.5 million in stimulus money to create a stronger social services network for prostitutes that included a temporary-stay facility, but the idea was dropped.

“You can’t blame the officers. Police aren’t policy makers,” said Dr. Anthony Talbott, a University of Dayton professor who teaches a class on human trafficking and forced prostitution. “This links to a lack of social services ... Cops also get promoted by how many busts they make, it’s the way the reward system is set up.”

Jail becomes a home when there is no home

Heard had already had two run-ins with Dayton police earlier in the week when undercover officers rushed the black Honda she was in on April 18.

With two metal crack pipes tucked into her bra, Heard, 44, was performing a sex act on a 47-year-old man for $6 in an alley off North Main Street when she saw the detectives, according to a police report.

Heard asked if she could be given a summons to appear in court instead being booked into the county jail. Because she had no valid address, she had to be booked.

Jail has been a second home for Heard, according to the Montgomery County sheriff’s records.

Since 2006, she has been arrested 45 times on prostitution-related charges, far more than anyone else in the county, according to the sheriff’s office.

Her jail time for those arrests amounts to 3.5 years and she averages about 15 days of freedom between her sentences.

During sentencing for her April arrest, Heard asked Municipal Court Judge Deirdre Logan for treatment to help her kick her gripping addiction to crack.

“It’s a very strong addiction and I don’t have the strength on my own ... to go (get help),” Heard said. “The drug pulls me stronger than the treatment does.”

Area judges said they must weigh requests for treatment with the frustrating reality that the few local groups who can handle people like Heard are overbooked and under funded.

Logan sentenced Heard to 60 days in jail and ordered an assessment be done to address her treatment needs. Two weeks ago, Heard entered treatment at the Nova House in Dayton. She declined a request to be interviewed.

The man on whom Heard was performing the sex act was given a summons to appear in court in lieu of arrest, but never charged with a crime, according to court records.

Logan would not comment on Heard’s case. At sentencing, Logan said she has to consider the offender’s criminal history, personal situation and hand down a proper punishment to keep the community safe.

“I think that the best way to prevent future re-offenses is to address the problem and that’s usually drugs or alcohol, homelessness, that type of thing,” she said. “That’s what we attempt to do here. Some times we have success stories, some times we don’t.”

There’s nowhere else to go, woman says

Nearly seven-months pregnant and relapsed on crack, Stephanie Willis, 24, jumped into an undercover Dayton detective’s car on May 10, looking to “turn a trick.”

She exposed her breasts and asked the undercover officer, Detective Douglas George, to touch one of them, according to a police report. Moments later, she agreed to go to a hotel with him to perform a sex act for money.

George gave a signal to nearby officers, who arrested Willis.

When asked by the officers if she agreed to provide sex for money, Willis said she was going to a hotel to “hang out” with George because she was homeless.

She was not lying about being homeless.

“Honestly that’s a big reason why a lot of us keep going back to the street because we have nowhere else to go,” Willis said on June 16, days after being transferred from the jail to a drug treatment facility.

She said she was diagnosed with behavioral disorders by the time she was a teenager and, as the daughter of a military father, she lived in Florida, Michigan and Utah before settling in Centerville by the time she was 16.

About then, Willis recalled one night she, a friend and a girl she barely knew were riding around in a car with plans to have a sleep-over at a friend’s house.

“The girl I didn’t really know then said, ‘Hey I need to stop over in Dayton,’ ” Willis said.

The girl got out the car in front of what Willis later realized was a crack house.

The girls drove around and smoked crack.

Willis was hooked.

Within a year she was “sitting in a dope house,” addicted to crack and out of money.

“All I wanted to do was get high because that’s what crack does to you,” she said. “A girl I was in the house smoking with said ‘if you want money we can walk right outside and make money.’ ”

Her high wearing off, Willis, then 17, walked to South Gettysburg Avenue and Germantown Street and began eyeing men in cars.

“Within 10 minutes I had $60,” Willis said.

She started hanging out with “dope boys” — males who sell crack, but don’t use. Some call them pimps, but Willis maintains she was not under anyone’s control.

She and other girls competed for the affection of the dope boys by buying them food, clothes and other stuff with money made from hooking.

“They are like our boyfriend, but we’re not like together,” she said. “We hang out because who would want a girlfriend that’s a prostitute?”

Willis said she mentally shuts down while performing sex on a stranger for money. She said her goal is always the same: get as much money and be as fast as possible.

“I feel nothing because all I want to do is get more crack,” Willis said. “I am not going to talk to you or anything because I want in and out. Fast as I can. Sitting here now, sober, it (prostituting) disgusts me just thinking about it.”

Ninety percent of the time men want oral sex for $10 or $20, she said.

Willis said she’s been repeatedly beaten, robbed and raped. Her most painful memory, she recalls, was during a bitter-cold night when she was 19. A man picked her up and drove to an alley where they agreed on a price for sex. The man instead pulled out a gun and raped Willis at gunpoint. He then drove her back to the street where he found her.

Dr. Talbott believes prostitutes such as Willis suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder brought on by years of abuse and traumatic experiences.

“Their daily lives and what they encounter — it’s a traumatic experience,” he said. “Many times they need to be rescued and restored.”

Willis has been picked up by Dayton’s undercover detectives at least four times for prostitution-related charges and arrested 17 times since 2004, according to jail records.

She said the undercover stings are something “factored in” to her profession and often prostitutes are released from jail without any probation or supervision.

“They are going straight back to the streets,” she said.

Willis barely talks to her father today. And while her mother still lives near Centerville, she won’t let Willis stay at her house — a punishment, Willis said, for years of lying and mistrust.

She recently gave her 16-month-old son, whose father is a drug dealer, up for adoption.

The baby girl she is about to give birth to was fathered by a different drug dealer.

“I’m keeping her,” Willis said. “She is the reason I am done with all this (stuff). I am not smoking crack ever again.”

End cat-and-mouse stings, some say

Judges and sexual abuse advocates said police should ditch their cat-and-mouse stings and treat prostitutes like victims and severely punish the johns seeking sex.

The idea is modeled after Sweden’s 1999 law that decriminalized prostitution but made buying sex illegal.

The legislation states that prostitution is “regarded as an aspect of male violence against women and children.

It is officially acknowledged as a form of exploitation of women and children and constitutes a significant social problem ... gender equality will remain unattainable so long as men buy, sell and exploit women and children by prostituting them.”

The law has led to significant drops in prostitution-related crimes there and prompted countries such as Norway and Iceland to pass similar laws.

Talbott said that in the U.S., it is the prostitute who is viewed as “trash or worthless” while men often avoid arrest and the negative labels.

Crime data backs up his point.

Last year Dayton police made 459 arrests of females (nearly all prostitutes) for prostitution-related offenses, according to police data.

A little more than half of those arrests were made by the vice crimes unit.

At the same time there were 138 arrests of males for prostitution-related offenses, 81 of those arrests were made by vice officers.

The ratio is similar for prior years.

“It’s not an equitable situation,” Biehl said about the females arrested versus males. “I think (prostitutes) are exploited. That’s why, as far as johns, we take their pictures and publicize them so there’s some public shaming.”

Biehl said disrupting the revolving door of prostitutes has to come from somewhere else.

“If it’s merely left to police resources we will fail in our efforts to effectively reduce street-level prostitution,” he said.

Franklin County Municipal Court Judge Paul Herbert is addressing the same issues in Columbus. He said he is working with police there to aggressively target the demand side of prostitution.

“The second phase (of tackling this problem) is going after the demand side,” he said. “Sweden ... started treating the women like the victims and the men like the criminals which is completely opposite from what we do in America today. I’ve been working with our city leaders and the police to start a demand centered approach to enforcement.”

Dayton Municipal Court Judge Daniel G. Gehres said getting women temporary housing would be a huge step in rehabilitation.

“We charge johns that go through our Johns School with the hope that one day we can get a halfway house to put them in,” he said.

Not all agree wholesale changes are needed.

Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer said he believes the criminal penalties for prostitution and johns should be stronger with offenders sent to prison.

“Obviously this is all drug related and I am sure the current system is not working,” he said. “Let them dry out in prison the old-fashioned way.”

In the mean time, Biehl said he can’t ignore requests from the community to get prostitutes off their neighborhood streets, even if only for a short time.

Neighborhood leaders and residents said they plan to keep calling in complaints.

“Street prostitution is always related to drug addicts and any time we can get a woman off the street for any period of time especially if we can do it in conjunction with drug treatment programs then we have a chance of breaking the cycle of her working on the street,” said Dan Kennedy, president of Southeast Priority Board.

Kennedy’s board hears numerous complaints from residents near East Third and Fifth Streets, east of Keowee Street — areas rife with prostitution activity.

“I am tired of seeing cars parked in the alley and watching some nasty stuff go on,” said Adam Blanton, 42, who lives in an apartment near Linden Avenue and East Third Street. “Cops are here all the time. I mean all the time and it doesn’t ever seem to stop.”