Increase in sex-related arrests attributed to growth, city image

Sunday, Sept. 12, 1999 | 9:44 a.m.

The number of arrests made by Metro Police for sex-related offenses has skyrocketed over the past three years, a problem vice officers attributed to growth and the image of Las Vegas as a permissive city.

Las Vegas City Councilman Gary Reese also conceded that an ordinance he sponsored to dissuade prostitutes from working downtown has actually shifted their activity to other areas of the city and Clark County.

Law enforcement has battled back with programs designed to discourage sex offenders from repeating their crimes. But Metro's vice division is struggling to keep up with the caseload.

"As the city grows and as the police department grows we hope to get a proportional increase in the vice section," Metro Lt. Terry Davis of the vice division said. "Maybe people come into town and see these provocative ads and think prostitution is legal when it's not. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Unfortunately they come to town uninformed."

Police made 4,261 sex-offense arrests in the fiscal year that ended June 30, surpassing the 3,809 arrests the previous year and 2,999 arrests in fiscal 1997. Most of these arrests were misdemeanors by adults conducting or soliciting prostitution. There were 2,860 prostitution arrests in fiscal 1999, compared to 2,214 the previous year and 1,937 in fiscal 1997.

Of grave concern to police is that 67 of the prostitutes arrested since 1997 tested positive for the AIDS virus.

The Reese-sponsored ordinance, the brainchild of Metro vice Detective Gil Shannon, established an "order-out" zone in 1996 that was intended to keep prostitutes away from downtown. Prostitutes who were arrested were told they could avoid jail if they stayed out of the zone for six months.

Teri Galardi, owner of Beers & Cheers at 713 Ogden Ave., said the ordinance has helped in her neighborhood.

"One of my goals is to make people feel comfortable walking downtown," she said.

But the zone worked so well that prostitutes began appearing in others areas, such as portions of Boulder Highway.

"What the ordinance was intended to do has been very effective," Reese said. "But now the prostitutes go to a different area not covered by the ordinance. There has to be some way to get rid of (prostitution) completely, but I don't think that will happen. They just go somewhere else."

Part of the problem, according to Davis and vice Sgt. Brian Evans, is that prostitution is a low priority for a judicial system already straining to prosecute violent criminals. Reese agrees.

"The prostitutes are not scared of what's happening to them now," Reese said. "You turn them loose and they go back and do the same thing on a different corner."

The good news is that a counseling program Metro vice runs with Las Vegas Municipal Court and the Clark County Health District has dissuaded about 700 men who solicited sex in reverse stings from repeating their offenses. Only three men have been repeat offenders so far.

Police also have succeeded since 1994 in discouraging about 360 child prostitutes, some as young as 11 years old, from going back to the streets.

"We want to get the juveniles off the street and then we want to target the person who put them on the street," Evans said. "We want to get the juveniles counseling or a job so they can get back into the real world."

Unfortunately, Evans said the prostitutes coming to Southern Nevada are getting younger and they're coming from a wider variety of places, including Canada and the Pacific Northwest.

"It's a growing problem," Davis said.