Koster cracks down on Craigslist

Police say there has been a drop in adult advertisements on the site.

By Celia Ampel

Published Sept. 3, 2010

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster called for the classifieds website Craigslist to remove its adult services section, citing concerns that the advertisements promoted prostitution.

Last Tuesday, in a letter addressed to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark, Koster and 16 other attorneys general wrote of their “growing recognition that ads for prostitution, including ads trafficking children, are rampant on (the site).”

Koster’s efforts to crack down on Craigslist date back to May 2009 and have affected central Missouri immensely, said Columbia Police Department Officer Tim Thomason, the lead investigator of human trafficking.

“We saw a dramatic drop in the use of Craigslist for the advertisement of adult services,” Thomason said.

Ads for prostitution also persist on other websites and in local newspapers.

Thomason said CPD uses the Columbia Daily Tribune in every one of its prostitution-related operations. Of the ads CPD investigates, he said the “overwhelming majority” are identified as advertising prostitution.

The Tribune is the most accessible means for the department to conduct stings, but investigators also use websites, said CPD Sgt. Geoff Jones, who is in charge of prostitution stings. Some of these websites are designed specifically for escorts, but others have multiple functions like social networking. The websites Backpage.com and Cityvibe.com have often turned up local prostitution-related ads, Thomason said.

The department is also investigating a handful of human trafficking cases found in both online and print advertisements. These cases include some instances of child trafficking, Thomason said.

With the increased prevalence of cell phones and e-mail, prostitution has become more difficult to track, Boone County Sheriff’s Department Detective Tom O’Sullivan said. When O’Sullivan started at the department 22 years ago, prostitution operations happened on street corners, in hotels and in massage parlors.

“It’s tougher because there’s not an actual place where people have set up shop,” he said. “I can’t tell you if there’s any more of it going on or any less of it going on, but it’s going on.”

O’Sullivan isn’t sure what could be done to reduce the problem of online solicitation because it’s hard for law enforcement to keep up.

“Every six months, there’s more and more technology,” he said.

Even as online solicitation draws widespread public criticism, officials have had difficulty getting the owners of websites like Craigslist to take action. In their letter to Craigslist, the attorneys general cited the company’s “blame the victim” mentality.

“Craigslist is the only player in the sex industry who is in a position to stop these ads before they are published,” the letter stated. “Yes, the perpetrators may eventually be apprehended and brought to justice, but the victim, assuming she survives, will carry the scars for life.”

The letter writers also took issue with the website’s manual review policy, which requires an attorney to look over each ad in the adult services section. This policy has failed to reduce “obvious solicitations” by a significant margin, the letter stated.

“In our view, the company should take immediate action to end the misery for the women and children who may be exploited and victimized by these ads,” the letter stated.