Also known as “Your Tax Dollars at Work”, Austin, Texas’ own KEYE news reports on the latest and greatest of Sting Operations out of Dallas:
Since January, arrests in sting operations featuring female officers posing as prostitutes are up 300 percent citywide. In the first nine months of 2005, there were about 141 arrests from sting operations; in the same period this year, there were 565.
I don’t practice criminal defense in Dallas, but I’ve seen the bill to the public for Austin prostitution sting operations (e.g., here, and here for some APD news releases), and let me tell you: they get expensive. I’m a believer that the State has a legitimate interest in regulating and perhaps decreasing prostitution.
But perhaps it’s one of those things like our so called War on Drugs: regulation would probably work better than criminalization.
First time convictions for Prostitution in Texas are classified as Class B Misdemeanors, second and third convictions are enhanced to Class A, and a fourth conviction rises to the level of a State Jail Felony.