Cybertraps for Educators by Lane Frederick S

Author:Lane, Frederick S. [Lane, Frederick S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mathom Press
Published: 2015-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Prostitution

The “most ancient profession in the world,” as Rudyard Kipling once famously described prostitution, has enthusiastically adopted the technological tools of the 21 st century. 13.1 Thanks to the ubiquitous availability of sites for advertising escort services, prostitutes are now just a click away for clients willing to risk criminal prosecution, sexually transmitted diseases, and worse. Escorts can run inexpensive classified ads in online services, and there are even a growing number of Web sites and online forums on which patrons review the escorts they’ve hired.

On the flip side, the Internet is making it safer and more efficient for police departments to combat the prostitution trade. Police, of course, have been catching patrons of prostitutes for decades, if not centuries. While departments still send out female officers as decoys on sketchy urban streets, the most effective method these days is to place a provocative ad in exactly the same online sites that prostitutes and escorts themselves use. If interested customers respond, they’re given instructions on where to meet. Once money is offered for sex, the party comes to a crashing halt. To add a final digital indignity to the proceedings, an increasing number of police departments are posting mug shots of the johns they arrest to police department Web sites in an effort to use “Internet shaming” to help combat the prostitution trade.

The individuals snared in these online prostitution stings come from a broad swath of society, and teachers, unfortunately, are not exempt. Every few weeks, reports emerge of another teacher caught up in an anti-prostitution sweep somewhere around the United States.

One of the more disturbing aspects of theses cases is that so many of the ads that seem to snare teachers (and others) either implicitly or explicitly state that the person posting the ad is under the age of 18. For instance, in March 2014, a high school chemistry teacher in Phoenix, AZ named Jerry Marfe responded to an online ad purportedly offering “adult services” from a pair of high school cheerleader prostitutes. Police used a hidden camera to record Marfe’s conversation with the female decoy, who told Marfe that she was 16 and asked if he was a teacher. After being arrested for offering money to have sex with the “prostitute,” Marfe was immediately placed on leave by the administration at Betty H. Fairfax High School, and resigned a few days later. In mid-June, Marfe was sentenced to 15 days in prison and 10 years of supervised release. 13.2

Similarly, police in Winona County, Minnesota ran an online ad that “displayed a girl wearing minimal clothing, in sexually suggestive positions. It also included language commonly used in ads that is consistent with minors advertising sex acts for money.” Police said that they started getting hits on the ads within minutes of its going live. Among the people who made arrangements to meet with a “15-year-old girl” was Bret Emmel, a retired health teacher at the Longellow Middle School in the Lacrosse School District. The district promptly told Emmel that his coaching and substitute teaching services were no longer required.

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