Where are the Hookers Headed?

Could prostitution really be coming to downtown Springfield? Recent accounts suggest it's possible. Of course, the subject is nothing new for the Springfield Police Department; in fact, Public Information Officer Grant Story says the neighborhood around South Campbell Avenue and State Street, less than a 15-minute walk from the intersection of South Campbell Avenue and West Walnut Street, was "thick with it" for many years and as recently as 2005, and Commercial Street remains the neighborhood with the greatest number of prostitution arrests with five made last year. In all, Springfield Police received seven reports of prostitution last year and made eight arrests. (Prostitution and solicitation are classified by city courts as municipal ordinance violations, which carry arrest penalties at the discretion of the officers involved.)

Lieutenant Ron Hartman, commander of the Special Investigations section of the Springfield Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division, said his team did a sting in the State Street and South Campbell neighborhood last year in which officers made arrests for drug possession and prostitution. A second sting occurred at the corner of East Commercial Street and North Washington Avenue last August, resulting in three arrests in approximately four hours. Hartman says nights such as these sometimes scatter the prostitutes and johns not arrested into surrounding communities.

However, when it comes to prostitution downtown Hartman says he has no record of arrests made there in his three years as Special Investigations commander-though he can't say it doesn't happen. "I would have to look long and hard to find a case of that downtown," he says. (Story says patrolling officers define downtown Springfield as two blocks north and south of Park Central Square, with Campbell Avenue used as the western border and Kimbrough Avenue to the east.)

But with prostitution stings occurring north and south of downtown since the start of 2005, such scattering could spell problems for the district. There have been an increasing number of eyewitnesses pointing out unusual and suspicious behavior in the district. Scott Perket, drummer for local hard rock band The Horizon Is After Us (Perket, for full disclosure, also works for Whitaker Publishing's production department), says he and his bandmates saw a woman approach a car at the four-way stop at South Avenue and Walnut Street one night while they were putting up concert fliers a month ago. "It was one of those things where, after it happened, you kind of put two and two together and go, 'Wait a minute...'," Perket says. Another downtown regular, who withheld his name to protect his job, says he has noticed suspicious-looking groups of women loitering around College Street west of Campbell Avenue.

There has been a more definitive account of sex for sale just a few blocks east from the State and Campbell sting. Pat G. (He asked his full name not be used for employment reasons), a twentysomething downtown regular who lives in an apartment complex on the corner of South Avenue and Madison Street, experienced prostitution near downtown firsthand. Pat G. says he and a friend were walking home around 2 a.m. from a night downtown in September when a short, skinny man approached, asking them to follow him around the corner. Feeling curious, they followed the man around to a set of bushes next to another apartment complex near South Avenue and West Madison Street, where a woman Pat G. estimates to be no older than 22 was writhing on the concrete in a white T-shirt and sweatpants, visibly drugged. "You wanna buy this girl, man?" the skinny man asked. Pat G. and his friend looked at each other, told the man no and quickly left.

Accounts such as Pat G's and suspicious activity around the district suggests prostitution may be a coming problem, but Story says it's difficult to collect evidence one way or another. "The people that do this for a living know what they're doing well enough to look like they're doing something else," Story says. He also says that, since prostitution in Springfield usually doesn't use pimps-Pat G's case being a possible, and slightly disturbing, exception-hookers will work wherever they choose, which is often where they don't find police patrolling.

The key to catching hookers and johns is complaints from the community, Story says. If enough reports of suspicious activity come from a specific neighborhood, Story says Springfield Police can set up a sting to try to catch people. Hartman says it's not a matter of looking for specific clues, either. "Just report things that don't look right," he says.