We were coming home late last weekend on Saturday night at saw no fewer than 7 black prostitutes on Nebraska between Osborne and Chelsea.
I don’t even bother calling the cops anymore.
Email Three:
It seems that the hookers have adapted their hours.
Last Saturday night at 3am, there was a supervisor in an unmarked car, chasing the hookers out of the neighborhood, north of Nebraska. I have consistently seen this, in the last month or so, at 3am on Friday and Saturday nights. A patrol car always seems to come along right at 5 mins before 3am. It has been fairly effective as several of the hookers have relocated to the blocks just south of Publix.
This past Friday, I saw one hooker between Hillsborough and MLK at 3:30am, and none on Saturday. However, one weeknight last week, not sure which, there were at least 6 hookers out there. Tonight, I didn’t see any.
The police have made an effort to disrupt their activity and it has worked, to some extent. The problem is that while we pay for police service, most of the officers spend their time in the higher crime areas to the south and east. Yes this helps keep our crime down, but it would be nice to have some dedicated SH units, like they do for neighborhoods in other cities.
Email Four:
I think this goes back to the question that we asked this past summer: What plan does TPD have to help solve the problem. We have done the same thing for 20 years and have gotten the same results. It seems there are no proactive thinkers down there. It is pretty sad when a bunch of high heel wearing crack head transvestites are smarter than our police force. I guess the part that is the most frustrating is that TPD has not once offered a viable workable solution to the issue. In most cities that want to eradicate the problem they offer workable solutions, patrol, work the court system, help write laws/ordinances, etc. So far their comment was it’s been around for ever it will be here until you rebuild the commercial corridor. I don’t see how that is a viable solution. Then to be told this weekend to call SAC instead of the non-emergency number now shows that their own people do not know how their own processes work.
I guess they are waiting for us to develop the solution then=2 0spoon feed it to them. So here goes: (please add your viable solutions as well)
1) We need tougher laws/ordinances that allow police to make arrests for activities that can be proven as a precursor to prostitution or suspicion of committing prostitution; i.e. sitting out at the street corner hiking your skirt up screaming “Hey Baby, can I get a ride” or hanging out in one spot for hours trying to flag down cars.
2) Enforce mapping. When a prostitute is arrested and found guilty they need to be mapped out of an area for life. If she/he is picked back up in the area they should face immediate jail time.
3) Create a state-wide/national database that can allow officers to see that the prostitute has had prior convictions in other Florida cities. If a prostitute has prior convictions prosecute accordingly.
4) Create a mandatory rehabilitation program for all offenders. We keep arresting the same girls/guys over and over. On the first arrest they should be forced to enroll in some sort of rehabilitative program and/or drug rehab. (Some cities require they perform community service in the neighborhood arrested: Clean parks, roadways, etc)
5) Work with other city departments to clean up and lighten up troubled areas. Increase street lighting, clean graffiti, mow vacant lots.
6) Create a working group from Ybor to the county line. We have seen how ineffective pushing them to the edge of the neighborhood is. We have to make sure they are no where on Nebraska. I would also suggest that we create the same group to help with the rising problem on Hillsborough.
7) Publicize the heck out of it. Find the internet sites promoting Nebraska and counter the advertising. Work closely with the local papers and TV station to tout. Work with the Tribune or SPT or TBT to create a weekly feature showing the week’s prostitution arrest. Once people see this for a while, it may be a deterrent- especially for Johns.
It seems the current plan has been extremely one dimensional. Make arrest. While that is a great first step, it is time to implement a next phase into the fight on prostitution. As TC said the hookers adapt TPD must adapt and change it up to throw them off as well. To have prostitutes (THREE!!!) in broad daylight at NOON on a Sunday shows that the problem is rising again and I am sure it will only get worse with the economy. Maybe if we can create the ideas, TPD can help us implement them. For years we have heard the same excuses “we can’t be everywhere at once” or “we are fighting more serious crimes” while we understand this to be somewhat true we also know for a fact that the prostitution problem helps create most of the serious crimes they are fighting (Drugs, thefts and more). All I asks is that we keep this going, come up with as many solutions as possible and I will make sure it gets into the proper hands.
Email Six:
You guys probably won’t agree with this solution. However, it IS a long range, proactive one that has been around since prohibition.
Create a red light district with registered hookers ( rather than street walkers in our neighborhoods). They are medically tested, treated and licensed. The main benefits are treating STDs . AIDs, create taxes to fund whatever treatment programs and administrative requirements to run program.
Secndly, legalize drugs. Give out clean needles, get rid of criminal element who steal, murder and in general create mayhem in our communicites, again tax the program and distribution centers, have necessary requirements to make such a program work.
Prostitution is not called the oldest profession for naught. Trying to get rid of it is not unlike trying to rid NYC of rats and roachs. It isn’t possible folks. But other countries hCW Hs varying degrees of success vby switching to MANAGING the problem. Study what worked and what didn’t and create a red light district in each of the four or give major urban areas in Fl.
Likewise, even the heads of our country are finally telling it like it is, we are a nation of “users” and we ourselves create the market for all the crime drawn to drug buying and selling. The only sure way to CONTAIN, but not eleiminate, the problem is to legalize drugs just as they discovered during prohibition re booze.
I really don’t care which is better or worse for a user. The point is that there are people who will take any drug any time they can get it or ccommit a crime to get the money to purchse. So let them. If they want to live in an opium haze that means they are not on the street. It is a no win discussion to try to decide well, do we just legalize pot but not heroin or crack. It doesn’t matter what their addiction of choice it….they become registered users and there would be both spiritual and medical programs to help them kick the habit if they are ready for such.
I double guarantee that kids will be less interested in something that is legal, taxes and for which you have to register. It would be on yours dirvers license or some such thing.
Those of you who have moral distate for the above solutions have to admit that aneither of these two partially linked issues will ever be eradicated. There will never be either enough money or boots on the street to get rid of these two eternal issues. If you want it to be out of sight and out of mind, then get it away from kids and families. If you want to try to make moral stnaces, go work in one of the distribution cemters where all of the above would be living and working. That way their souls could be appealed to and healed and there may be many wonderful successes,.And maybe over time, there will be an answer to the question of why become a hooker and why take drugs. In the meantime, we don’t have to witness or directly deal with those inidividuals who for whateverr reason ply their respective trades and feed their addictions.
Will this ever happen in Florida or in our nation?
Not until the moralists cede failure of current methods and carve out a spiritual outpost in the midst of the sufferes that satisfies the tenets of their various faiths. Then we will have the handcuffs removed and put ‘em all in one controlled taxed area.
No more filling up our jails or handing down useless penalties taking up tax payer dollars and contributing to our being the most incarcerating nation in the world per capita.
Or, you couldsimply stone them to death and eliminate them as they do in China and parts of Islam.
I prefer the red light distrivct and drug centers personally./
Remembr how hard it is to get rid of rats and roaches…..
Email Seven:
After this morning’s lengthy email I had quickly received a call from one of the leaders from TPD. I think there may be some confusion as to who to call and when. From the last Prostitution Meeting last summer we were told to contact the TPD non-emergency number. Yesterday I was told to call SAC. Each week it seems like we are told to call the non-emergency number.
Today from the leader, I was told to be sure everyone know to contact the office for our district at 242-3800. They said they have had some issue with the dispatch and for us to use the above number. I requested a detailed listing of who to call and when. I will send this out as soon as it is emailed over.
