New Law in Fight Against Prostitution Targets Pimps

The police were pretty sure he was a pimp. A homeowner had called to report a creepy guy loitering near her Hollywood house with his prostitute. The tipster provided detailed information: the suspect’s physical description, the type of car he drove, his actions and his exact location.

When police arrived, they arrested the woman under the state’s misdemeanor loitering laws. The man stood by and watched.

“We couldn’t get the pimp,” recalled Sgt. Chuck Buttitta of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood vice unit. “We didn’t have a violation of law on him.”

For several years, California laws against prostitutes and pimps have operated on what appears to be a double standard: While police and prosecutors have been cracking down on prostitutes, more stringent legal standards have allowed many pimps to walk away scot-free. Cooperation of prostitutes was almost a necessity for arresting or convicting pimps.

That changed Friday, as a new law took effect aimed at getting tough on pimps by making some of their activities misdemeanor crimes.

“It’s a fairness issue,” said Det. Keith Haight of the LAPD’s Organized Crime and Vice Division. “We can’t just target the prostitutes. We have to target the people who promote prostitution.”

Pimping and pandering are felonies punishable by up to six years in state prison; eight years if the prostitute is under 16. But convictions are difficult to obtain because the offenses are virtually impossible to prove without cooperation and testimony from prostitutes, say police and prosecutors.

One element of pimping, for example, requires that a prosecutor show that a defendant “derives support” from a prostitute. “How do you prove that?” asked Deputy City Atty. Bill Sterling. “It isn’t enough to collect the money. They have to stake a living on the money. You need the girl to prove that.”

But prostitutes usually refuse to testify against their pimp, either out of loyalty or from fear of retaliation, police and prosecutors say.

Such was the case involving two teenage runaways arrested by Hollywood police on suspicion of prostitution a few months ago. After the girls told police about their abusive pimp, officers arrested him and the district attorney’s office filed charges. But the girls disappeared. With no prostitute to testify against the pimp, the case had to be dropped, officers said.

Statistics and anecdotal evidence suggest that as prostitutes keep getting busted, their “daddy” or “boyfriend,” in street parlance, usually gets off the hook. In Hollywood, vice officers made about 1,600 prostitution-related arrests in 1998, but only 26 pimping-related arrests.

One former streetwalker who has worked all over Los Angeles for several years says she knows “hundreds of girls who have gotten busted.” She calls herself “Nicky,” and says she has been a pimp’s main prostitute who helps him with his so-called business activities.

Nicky, who is now living at a shelter for at-risk young adults, said she knew of only one pimp who got caught and was sent to jail, because a woman working for him got tired of his beatings and testified against him.

The new law, signed by Gov. Pete Wilson in September, creates an additional category of crime, “supervision of a prostitute,” which makes it a misdemeanor to “direct, supervise, recruit or aid” anyone in committing an act of prostitution, or to collect or receive proceeds earned by a prostitute. The crime is punishable by up to six months in county jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

Because it is a misdemeanor, the law’s requirements are easier to prove. Collecting money from prostitutes constitutes enough evidence to convict, said Sterling, who wrote the legislation. Police officers who witness other common pimping activities--directing a prostitute’s actions, helping protect her turf, or driving her to and from street corners--can provide such testimony in court.

Police say that turning up the heat on pimps could reduce the number of street prostitutes in some parts of Los Angeles. In Hollywood and Van Nuys, which police have identified as areas where the most extensive prostitution occurs, pimps are usually behind the illicit street activities. “If I can get at pimps, I can get more girls off the street,” Buttitta said.

In South-Central, another area of heavy prostitution activity, the law is not expected to have much impact. “We don’t see a lot of pimps down there,” Haight said. “In South-Central L.A., the pimp is crack cocaine.”

Service organization leaders view the new law with cautious optimism.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Lois Lee, president of Children of the Night, a nonprofit service organization for sexually abused youths. “My concern is that these pimps will just pick up and move to another state,” where prostitution laws are more lenient, she said.

Others point out that the law is at least a start in the fight against prostitution. “Nothing in life is flawless,” said Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles), who sponsored the bill. “If we can fashion laws that would drive street prostitution out of California, I think we’re doing a good job.”

Nicky, the former prostitute, remains skeptical. Even if a streetwalker’s pimp is arrested, “she’d still work,” Nicky said. “The other pimps will know and scoop her up. She’ll just switch.”

But a similar law enacted three years ago that made it easier to arrest street prostitutes has had a powerful effect, police and community activists say.

Jim Tartan, president of the Hollywood Sunset Community Police Assn., remembers how there used to be a “constant parade” of prostitutes, pimps and customers along his neighborhood’s streets. “I’ve chased them out of my driveway,” he said. “It was a circus around here. It was terrible.”

Since the anti-prostitution law’s enactment, there have been noticeably fewer hookers on the streets, Tartan said. But every so often he sees the pimps coming back, seemingly immune under the law, and bringing back girls and women to ply their trade.

Even if the new law just drives pimps underground, at least they will be less likely to be on the street, said Tartan, who had brought the idea of the law to Knox’s attention. “If they can make life hard on the pimps, then the prostitutes won’t be around.”