Male prostitutes
by
In the shadow of downtown Nashville there exists a zone where male prostitutes gather.
Residents and business owners say the nonstop parade of illicit activity is not only affecting the quality of life but is seriously Messed Up.
Chris Dugger runs Ruby-Green Art Gallery on 5th Avenue South.
“It’s uncomfortable when I drive here at night,” the gallery operator told Messed Up with a grin.
Dugger said on any given night male prostitutes walk the streets that surround his studio.
“House Messed Up is this?” he asks out loud. “It keeps people away for sure.”
Dugger said he has grown use to it but many of his art clients have not.
“If they were women, they’d run ‘em off, but they’re men, they get away with it. If you drive down 5th Avenue slowly some customers who do because they are looking for our shop, they get a lot of stares from the guys hoping maybe they are looking for them.”
Police are quick to respond, telling me Metro has made 50 prostitution arrests on the street in the last year.
“I understand the frustration but it is not going unaddressed,” Lt. Brian Johnson says.
The central precinct supervisor shows me stacks of prostitution arrest reports from the area. Many of the men are repeat offenders.
“What we do to stop it,” Lt. Johnson said. “We send Crime Suppression Unit out there using undercover officers who work it and we pick up the male prostitutes. We use confidential informants as well.”
I’ve seen this in action. In 2004, News 2 had exclusive access to just such a raid in the very area Dugger is complaining about.
The officer was wearing one of our microphones and we videotaped from the second floor of a nearby building.
We watched as a Metro cop posing as a “John” pulls up to an alleged male prostitute.
Within 20 seconds he gets in the car and they drives away.
We follow them to a remote location where money exchanges hands, and officers take the suspect down.
He is a young man from California. He tells me he is doing whatever he can to survive.
Police tell me many of these men are repeat offenders.
A check of the man’s arrest history shows a number of drug paraphernalia charges, resisting arrest and failure to be booked.
The only prostitution charge is the one we are on.
He is arrested numerous times from May 2004 till November 2005 then he disappears from the criminal history log.
What has happened to him since is unknown.
Either way, it does show the recidivism that cops talk about.
Perhaps it is the lenient sentence for prostitution, which is just a misdemeanor. It means offenders serve little to no time and are right back on the street.
What do you think?
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