Increased prostitution activity on O'ahu has led to a spike in arrests and a call by some City Council members and Downtown residents for an expansion of the city's prostitution-free zones to include all of Chinatown.

Honolulu police said prostitution arrests rose in 2005 after declining in the previous three years. Police made 401 prostitution arrests last year, up 51.3 percent from 265 arrests in 2004.

The figures are significantly below activity in the early '90s, however. Arrests hit a 13-year high in 1993 with 620. The arrest numbers include alleged prostitutes and alleged "clients."

A July killing linked by police to prostitution heightened fears Downtown, said Lynne Matusow, a Honolulu Tower resident and vice chairwoman of the Downtown Honolulu Neighborhood Board.

"(Prostitution) is an issue in the condos, and people are just really upset over the whole thing. The killing is just the last straw," she said. "There are a lot of complaints about the prostitution on Kukui Street, and people are looking for solutions, but it is really hard to do something. It's going on 24/7. The kids are seeing it on the way to school, and people are just really upset."

Hank Taufaasau, owner of Hank's Cafe, said he sees prostitutes on Kukui Street all the time.

"We're talking all day. I'll get to work at quarter of 7 and I'll go to Safeway and I'll see them walking the street," Taufaasau said.

Since police have begun targeting certain areas near Hotel Street that were once gathering spots for prostitutes, he said, the problem has migrated mauka, away from most Chinatown businesses but right in the middle of residential areas.

COMPLAINTS GROW

Complaints from residents and business people have escalated to the point that City Council members and police have called for an expansion of the city's three prostitution-free zones, which were instituted in 2000.

The zones, which include Waikiki, Ke'eaumoku Street and part of Downtown Honolulu, allow officers to arrest prostitutes on sight if they previously have been arrested there, convicted and identified for the geographical restriction.

Each zone can encompass 3 square miles, police said. Prostitutes who return to the area after an arrest and conviction face a $500 fine, a mandatory 30-day jail term, or as much as six months probation.

If caught in the zone between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., a convicted prostitute could serve a 30-day sentence.

Supporters of the zones acknowledge that they force prostitutes to seek out new parts of town but insist that they are a tool needed to control the problem.

"It (prostitution) is absolutely, unequivocally one of those things you have to control," said City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle. "In general, I believe we're pro the idea of extending the prostitution-free zones provided they are done in a legal and constitutional manner."

IT WON'T GO AWAY

Police Maj. Kevin Lima, head of the Honolulu Police Department's Narcotic/Vice Detail, said, "It's not the tool that will solve prostitution, but it is a tool. We realize residents in the area (Chinatown) are frustrated with the problem, and it appears the activity has increased since the beginning of the year."

City Councilmen Charles Djou and Rod Tam support the expansion of the zones, although both said that won't completely eradicate prostitution.

"It by no means will solve the problem; prostitution still goes on in Waikiki, but it certainly helps," said Djou. "How do you totally eradicate it from a society? Maybe we'll never, ever totally get rid of it, but I don't accept that we should throw up our hands and do nothing about it because I don't think there is such a thing as an acceptable level of criminal behavior."

HARSHER SENTENCES

In addition to the expansion of the zone, Tam hopes the Legislature will one day increase the penalty from a petty misdemeanor to a misdemeanor, which increases the possible jail term.

"Until the state Legislature comes out with stronger penalties, the problem will remain. What's a petty misdemeanor? It's nothing," said Tam. "You have to make it more undesirable."

Anyone engaged in prostitution — as a prostitute or as a client — faces a petty-misdemeanor charge, and first-time offenders, if not granted a deferred judgment, can be fined $500, or spend up to 30 days in jail, or be sentenced to probation.

ATTITUDE CHANGES

But even as police have stepped up their enforcement, curbing prostitution will take more than arrests and increased enforcement, crime analysts and community activists said, and will require changing some community attitudes.

"You can create all the laws you want in the world, but it will probably not make a dent in the actual selling of sex," said Lorraine M. Faithful, executive director of Sisters Offering Support, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping those affected by sexual exploitation. "Changing people's thoughts toward the sex industry is the No. 1 solution. We have a transient male population ... and a cultural attitude that says it is OK to pay for sex or to patronize sex-related business."

Sisters Offering Support works to help victims of prostitution through education, prevention, intervention, pushing for public policy reform and community collaborations, according to the organization's Web site.

Ronald Becker, an attorney who is chairman of the Criminal Justice Program at Chaminade University, said communities with a strong tourism industry will always attract individuals who profit from the sale of sex, and it will take a concerted community approach to significantly reduce the problem.

"Whenever there is a market in capitalism, there will be a supply," he said. "Male-dominated cultures and places where these men vacation will have prostitution until the right-thinking people of a community come together and say that tourism does not include women in bondage."

RISK-TAKERS

Police officials also acknowledge arrests may not be the most effective way to address the problem.

Officers routinely patrol areas frequented by prostitutes but concede that most offenders are willing to risk the relatively light penalty that comes with a conviction. Convictions for a petty misdemeanor rarely occur on the scale of arrests, police say, because prostitutes and their customers either pay the first-time offender fine or skip town before their court appearance.

"Hawai'i's prostitution law is a petty misdemeanor ... and it appears that many prostitutes are willing to be arrested more than a few times before they flee our state and avoid prosecution," said Lima, the police vice major. "We know prostitution is not going to stop, but we need to do what we can."

Lima's division works with patrol officers to arrest prostitutes and their customers. Narcotics/vice detectives also investigate prostitution that takes place in strip clubs, hostess bars and massage parlors. Investigators initiate long-term felony investigations targeting pimps and crime organizations that coordinate prostitution in Honolulu, he said.

CONVICTION RATE 53%

Criminals can be arrested multiple times and have pending court cases before facing a conviction, police and law enforcement officials said. The majority of prostitution that occurs in Honolulu is coordinated by small groups or individuals, Lima said.

Records with the state judiciary show an average of about 223 convictions annually in the 13-year period from fiscal year 1992-93 to 2004-05. The number of arrests in the 13 calendar years from 1993 to 2005 average 423 per year.

That puts convictions at a rate of about 53 percent.

"Part of (the difficulty in convicting prostitutes and clients) ... is that they are sophisticated in understanding what the elements of the offense are and therefore they do what they can to avoid successful prosecutions," Carlisle said. "In other words, they don't ask someone if they want to exchange sex for money; they ask (clients) if they want a date. Also, police have a finite amount of resources to dedicate to investigating and enforcing that particular crime. They can't spend their entire life working on prostitution, and it is very manpower-intensive."

Prostitutes or clients also flee the state at times, complicating prosecutions and convictions, he said.

ONGOING COMPLAINTS

Lima said last year's arrest increase resulted from the work of a small team of investigators assigned to the Narcotics/Vice Division as well as Crime Reduction Unit officers and fourth-watch officers assigned to the Waikiki and Central patrol districts. The initiative implemented last year is ongoing.

Prostitution activity has been a source of complaints from Downtown Honolulu residents, small-business owners and restaurateurs for years, complaints that intensified following an unsolved homicide last month.

On July 1, Michael "Cheddar" Truelove, a 24-year-old San Francisco man, was gunned down from behind as he and his 25-year-old brother ran from an unknown number of men identified by police as pimps.

Police said the shooting arose out of a territorial dispute, although they do not have evidence that Truelove was involved in prostitution.

The shooting occurred at 11:53 p.m. after Truelove and his brother approached a prostitute on Nu'uanu Avenue and Kukui Street, police said.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.