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Yeah, yeah. Coming This fall, your favorite radio station rocks out on TV. I watch TV. There's a naughty word. I knew somebody was going to use that word. They're the craziest people ever to hit the airwaves. Get crazy people on the air. We're going to have

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to get rid of the whole staff. And they're right after MASH for one full hour of insanity. They can't all be crazy, but they are MASH and W K R P. Starting September 19th on Channel two, there's only 12 please. Members and supporters of the US

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prostitutes collective marched on the San Francisco Hall of Justice last Tuesday to protest what they claim to be police brutality, police, racism and illegal arrests of prostitutes. The San Francisco Police Department says the claims have no basis. In fact, if you'd like to talk to the

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head of the prostitutes collective and the lieutenant in charge of vice from the San Francisco Police Department, call us right now are Number is an area code. 4158740222 That's 8740222 on open line. Yeah, me. Mm. Good

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evening, everybody I'm Johnny Barnes, Selvin. And this is open line your time to question the experts about issues important to us all. There is, as you have heard, a basic disagreement between the US prostitutes collective and the officers of the Vice Crimes Bureau of the San

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Francisco Police Department as to whether or not there is police brutality, police, racism and illegal arrest all aimed against prostitutes. So tonight I've invited to people here to talk about the issues that have been raised. They are Margaret Prescott, spokesperson for the US prostitutes collective and

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also one of its founders, also known as US pros. Welcome tonight. I'm glad you believe to be here. Actually. Also, we've invited Lieutenant William Gross word officer in charge of the Vice Crimes Bureau of the San Francisco Police Department. Welcome, lieutenant. Gross word. Now, the first

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thing I'd like to know. I think a lot of us have not ever heard before of the US prostitutes, collective or us pros. And we'd like to know what it is and what its goals are basic. Certainly we're a national organization. We're based in San Francisco

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and Los Angeles as well as New York. We began in New York City as New York prostitutes collective and were also part of, uh, international network of prostitute organizations are sister Group is the English collective of prostitutes that recently occupied the Church of the Holy Cross

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in London, England. And we hope we don't have to take such action here to call attention to the treatment, uh, that prostitutes get by the hands of the police. Can you tell us what? How how many prostitutes or supporters of prostitutes are there in the network

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that you speak? Well, I am delighted to say that I've lost count at this point. When we first began to use the count on our fingers who are members were at this point, it really would be impossible for me to say there are women who function

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in our core organization in the cities were relocated. But there are thousands of women out there who, because of, uh, the illegality cannot come forward. Also, we have found in research that was done in Britain and reassure the same is true here that the majority of

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prostitutes are mothers, particularly single mothers, uh, many of whom are quote quite respectable. Citizens may be members of your church, P T A. Or your synagogue. And, uh, simply because of the economic situation that women find ourselves in. For example, in California earning 49 cents to

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every dollar a man earns that go into the business, not because of sex you find prostitution. It's not about sex at all. It's an economic issue. It's about dollars and cents. It's about surviving. Are you now, or have you ever been a prostitute? No. And if

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I were, I certainly wouldn't say it on a public television. And another, Is there anyone in the US amongst us pros who would ever say I am now? Or I have one policy that we have in this process that we don't identify who the working women

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are. We do that for security reasons. We also do that so that a woman who is presently working can feel that she can come and function in the organization, can organize with us without being jeopardized in any way. Okay, I'd like to know from you, Lieutenant

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growth, but what is the policy of the San Francisco Police Department towards prostitution? Well, basically prostitution. The state of California is against the law we arrest prostitutes. If the elements of the crime are there, we actually act more on complaints were received when we send undercover

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officers in certain neighborhoods, we usually have a complaint from the people in that neighborhood. And that's basically what we work on is complaints from the citizens. All right, now let's talk just a bit about the charges that you were raising last Tuesday in front of the

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Hall of Justice. You were saying, uh, you you were charging the San Francisco Police Department with brutality, racism and illegal arrest. Now there are absolutely say that there are those. In fact, one of the first response is, uh, that people gave me to This whole issue

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was illegal arrest. How can there be such a thing? Well, I I don't know what to talk about the charges specifically before we go to the Absolutely. I don't know why there's that confusion about illegal arrest and illegal arrest is one that is done outside of

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the law. Now U. S prostitutes collective. One of our goals is to abolish the law is all together. That's not the issue. That's not why we were picketing outside the Hall of justice, which we renamed the Hall of Injustice. We feel that if someone is picked

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up that it should be done within the law that women are picked up routinely. We have examples of woman was on her way to the dentist. She was arrested. A woman was out jogging in the Tenderloin. Now because those cops that worked in the area, she

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was quote unquote a known prostitute. She was picked up. She was actually out jogging. The case that we picketed about was the case of Ms X. We're referring to her as Miss X to really protect her identity. At this point, we will be taking, uh, this

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case to trial and she was charged on three counts. Uh, I'll talk about two of those because the third count, no one could explain it to her. Me, the police officers where she was taken could not tell her what that charge was, both of which were

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false. I mean, she was not doing any of those things soliciting, loitering, uh, that she was charged with, and we know, as a fact, because women reported to us all the time that this is just routine. Not only that, she was also brutalized. The woman was

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handcuffed. She was wearing high heeled shoes. It wasn't that she had a weapon. And she was going to attack the officers. She was thrown across the room. She was dragged by her hair. Um, while she was there, um, in the holding cell, she saw women there

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who had similar experiences. And, uh, it's routine. It goes on all the time. And we feel that, um, prostitutes are part of the public, and we feel that the police must be made accountable. Are two prostitutes. Okay, Lieutenant? Gross word. You're in a rather awkward position

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because you're well, you're not defending. We're talking about someone who has not been identified, someone who is a non specific person. Um, would you like to respond to the things that you do? It's very, very difficult to respond. Just a general. All of that was this

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general statement of something that allegedly happened. San Francisco Police Department has very strict guidelines and how all the officers in the Police Department act and conduct themselves, and we follow those guidelines. There's many, many ways that the the group or the individual can make a complaint

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to the police department and will be investigated. Could actually complain to me if it's an officers that are that I'm in charge of, I would initiate and started investigation on any accusations that are that, she says occurred. But it's very, very, very difficult to say that

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somebody jogging in the Tenderloin was arrested and brutalized for her vice contention, complaint or advice? Arrest. Okay, we have some calls now, so let's go to the lines. Good evening, caller on line one. You're on open line. Yes, your guestbook of prostitution as being a economic

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issue. And I concur with that. But also being the father of of two young daughters. Uh, there's prostitution, uh, four or five blocks from my home and every day I have to take my daughters at the school, and we're not talking about the high class call

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girl who gets paid 150 or $200. We're talking about girls who are on the street who are undernourished and who seem to be on drugs. And, uh, this is not These are not very good role models for my daughters, and I'd like to know how people

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in neighborhoods such as mine can can rally together and get the attention of the police department to come out and to drive these people away not to just give them, uh, citations. And then, uh, two or three days later, they're back there, but to get them

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out and get them out completely. Well, okay, thank you very much. Now, for every question I know that both of you want to answer, I would like to hear first from Lieutenant Grace word because the question was aimed toward the police department. Well, that's the type

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of incident that I referred to earlier and how we act. People like that call us all the time. They write us letters, they write the chief letters, they write the Board of Supervisors letters. And then we act on those complaints and we go out there and

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see if we can eliminate that from the neighborhoods are from the group or the neighborhood where he is living. If he told me his neighborhood, we would act and would write up a complaint and go into that neighborhood and see if we could eliminate the problem

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there. The problem we have, we have to have the elements of the crime and have a good solicitation or we won't make an arrest. When you say eliminate the problem, What does that mean? Well, we would go out there with undercover officers and get solicitations. If

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we get a solicitation from a prostitute, we would make an arrest. If we don't get a solicitation, we don't make an arrest. Okay, now there are two presidents that the caller mentioned. One is that he understands that it is an economic issue. We feel that in

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San Francisco and all across this country, there's a new breed of prostitutes that we've been referring to as Reagan's girls. Women who, because of cutbacks in social programs, have been forced to go into prostitution to feed their families. We also understand that no one likes to

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live in a red light district. Prostitutes also don't like to work in red light districts. Um, the San Francisco Committee on Crime as far back in 1971 in a report that was submitted to the Department of Justice, says, And I quote, the criminal process not only

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fails to be a significant deterrent for prostitution, it does nothing to help prostitutes. It reinforces the pimps role and I mean, I I think that that really answers the question. The fact is, is that what the vice squad has been doing for years has not eliminated

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what the lieutenant referred to as the problem. And I think we have to go to the root of the problem if we are interested in getting rid of, uh, street prostitution. And that is why the women go into prostitution in the first. You said something to

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me before the show. He said, We do not support prostitution. We support prostitutes. Absolutely. Can you explain what you meant by that? Okay, just as we feel that the, uh, the church is against sin, but it is for sinners. Um, one of the goals of our

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organization is for viable economic alternatives so that no one has to be a prostitute. It is not a profession that one aspires to. 99.9% of the women in the industry would leave it this minute if given some other feasible economic alternative to feeding their families. I

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would also like to say something about juveniles because he did refer to that in his question. A lot is said about juvenile prostitution, and we're also very concerned about that. We feel that a lot of juveniles are runaways. We feel that those juveniles are at the

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forefront of the fight against the kind of rape and violence that unfortunately, oftentimes go on in home. Also the kind of economic dependence, dependence in that situation. They leave that situation to face who knows what out on the street and that there is no place for

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these kids to go. Well, it sounds like you want to form a coalition. No, why don't you get together? Let's take another call and think about that. We have a caller on the line to Good Evening, caller. You're on open line, all right, I'm a working

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girl, and I just wanted to say that I think that what Margaret Prescott is saying, it's really great. It's really good to see someone on TV talking about this. It's really good to see it coming out in the open because I been arrested in San Francisco.

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I know what what these women are saying is true. It goes on, I've seen it. It's happened to my girlfriends That's happened to me, you know, and it's like after you've been, you know, pushed around and throwing around down there at the police station. You know,

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um, Mr Grossman talked about us coming there to make complaints to the vice department. Are we supposed to go back to these very same people who threw us around and put us through this really traumatic experience? You know, we get dragged in there all the time.

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A lot, you know, illegally. You know, like we can be standing on the corner waiting for a bus. You know, it's not true that they just pick us up for soliciting. They pick women up when they're not soliciting, you know, they go out of their way

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to entrapped women Afternoon. Yeah, well, I want to say that it's I think that it's great that the United States prostitutes collective is coming out and making these things public. Because the women themselves, we can't be public, you know, we can't come out, you know, and

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say, you know, look, and we can't go. We don't want to go back to the vice department after the vice department itself has thrown around. You know, we don't It's like what? The fox guarding the henhouse. Okay, thank you very much. She had a lot to

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say. What about the whole process? Where a prostitute who feels that she has been abused in some way has to make her complaint to the abusers? Is that the process is not really no? Okay, We have a unit in the police department is called the Internal

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Affairs Unit. Now, since last January, the voters of San Francisco have put this in civilians hands. They're not members of the police department. It's just a new program starting. They can certainly make their complaint there. I really young lady that was talking on the on the

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line. She was sounded very young and she agreed with Ms Prescott. But these acts don't occur. The girls, they're out on the street. They are really the victims of the crime. They we talked about economic issues. The pimps from my experience are the ones that are

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making the money. And that's almost a universal statement. I could make that It's the girls on the street do not have any money. They never have any money there. Do you see, I I don't mean to interrupt you, except that I just want you really do

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seem to be singing the same song that you are. You both think that, uh, it's an economic problem. Uh, you both would like to see women have alternatives. Has there ever been a thought that perhaps the police department and the U. S. Prostitutes collective could work

00:16:26.440 - 00:16:42.230

together? Well, I would really like to, uh, to disagree with something that the lieutenant said because I I really don't buy that were so much on the same side. I think if we were, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion today. Um, I'm so glad you

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said what you did about pimps, because when you go out and you sweep women, when you have those crackdowns that forces the dependency of working women on pimps, who is going to come down and bail you out? And the pimps know that they know that because

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of the laws they know because police sweeps are going on, that they can go to that woman and extort. And in a lot of cases, it is downright extortion. Extort that money from her because they know of her vulnerability with the police. And we have found

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that when the, uh and there are a lot of women who are trying to work independently. Now. Women are not interested in giving their money to pimps and would really like to do away with pimps. But then those crackdowns happened. Women who formerly try to work

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independently say, Well, look, I better go get somebody. What am I gonna do? I'm here in the jail. The case of music. She was held there for 10 hours. Five of those hours was after her bill was posted, Lieutenant. Gross word. And then we'll be taking

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a break. Well, I really don't know how. If we come back to Mrs X being held for 10 hours, it's actually a fact that the vice officers and I never said we made sweeps. We do not make sweeps. We don't go in and make sweeps. We

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go in, we send undercover officers in in certain neighborhoods. We have regular type of patrols where we get numerous complaints all the time. One particular group in San Francisco, the Hayes Valley Group, calls and writes all the time. They don't want the prostitutes in their neighborhood.

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So we have to use different innovative techniques to go out and try and make arrests. It's the only way we can. But we don't go out there and sweep the girls off the street. Now I say in most incidents of arrest, the officer the girl is

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in and out of jail before the police officers throughout the paperwork that's involved in making the race do paperwork. Well, I That's something that Miss X is saying occurred. I don't think that we're discussing now with our lawyers filing an official complaint, But I have another

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question. How much does it cost the taxpayers? I think taxpayers have a right to know how much of their money goes into arresting and rounding up prostitutes per year. And then how much money is spent on confining those prostitutes in jail? All right, we're going to

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have to take a break right now. When we come back, we'll talk about the taxpayer's interest in this issue. Please stay with us. We'll be right back right after this message. Mhm. This is it. A two hour special saluting the top 40 hits of the last

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decade. Solid gold salutes the seventies. Wednesday at eight on Channel two, there's only 12 Welcome back to open line. I'd like to remind you that our number here is an area code 415 It's 87402 to 2 and we were talking about the interest of the taxpayer

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just before we took a break. So would you like to talk to that issue? I know you've done a lot of research put about the police Department. Do you break it down? How much money goes into prostitution enforcement? And no, I don't think that we have

00:19:45.630 - 00:19:59.410

that or I don't have those figures here. Now I will say that the the taxpayers or the citizens of the state have put the laws in. I think they expect us to enforce them. That's right. I think they also have a right to know how much

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it costs. Now we did a little research. Some We looked at the report of the San Francisco Committee and crime, uh, done in 1971. And we found, for example, uh, that in 1967 there was an excess of $100,000 for just jail. Now we use the calculation

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of $175 per prostitute picked up, which is probably a low estimate because that was the one used in 67. And in 1982 with 2000 and 56 arrests. We estimated 359 $1000. And that is a low estimate. Well, and we think that at the time that we're

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told to tighten, you know, budget strings that their cutbacks in remedial programs and education for our youth and alternatives for juveniles. We think it's a shame that that amount of money is being spent, not even solving the problem. Well, as as Lieutenant Gross Word said, it's

00:21:00.700 - 00:21:20.860

still against the law. So, uh, we're going to have to approach it from a different direction, that's for sure. Let's take a call. We have a caller on line three. Good evening, caller. You're on open line. Go ahead with your question, please. Hello? Is there a

00:21:20.860 - 00:21:36.330

caller on line three? Our collar has gotten shy all of a sudden. What do you have to say to that? You know, the The fact is, it's against the law. You heard the first caller who said I don't want this in my neighborhood. Um, let's talk

00:21:36.330 - 00:21:52.450

about it as an economic issue. What? You see, what are you doing in us pros to to do something about the economics of it. What, you want to, uh, take it off the books as a crime first? Absolutely. That is a long range goal. What do

00:21:52.450 - 00:22:03.710

you think that that would be? You know, if you did that, we know that it is an an uphill fight. We think the effect would be to clean up the streets for one. No one likes to work on the street. It's very dangerous. If a woman

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had a place where she could advertise to get clients cause you're out on the street to get clients because it is also illegal to say I'm a prostitute and call me at this number. I think that if women had other places to work, if women were

00:22:16.970 - 00:22:32.890

able to operate as an independent business not the legal structure, as in parts of Nevada or in places uh, in Germany, where women describe that as just the new assembly line and as far as we are concerned, it's just the legalization of pimping. Really, We don't

00:22:32.890 - 00:22:46.930

want that. We like also to get rid of that the pimp situation and for women to be able to work this street. I think if we look at the statistics put out by the National Task Force and prostitution, they've said that only 15 to 20% of

00:22:46.930 - 00:23:01.820

prostitution is on the street. So that other 85% takes place some other in some other way. Meaning you may live next door to a prostitute who's working and not know it. There are ways of working to be and be very discreet about tenant gross word. How

00:23:01.820 - 00:23:19.660

do you feel about the decriminalization of prostitution? You've worked in, uh, prostitution and narcotics for a lot A lot of years. Well, what do you think would be the effect? You've heard what Miss Prescott thinks the effect would be? Well, the effect of prostitution now on

00:23:19.660 - 00:23:41.520

young teenagers. A lot of people using narcotics getting into prostitution. If prostitution was legalized, you would have the same problems, would have the same problems that we have now. Identical problems would get. I think I states that have legalized prostitution. Now, in certain counties of the

00:23:41.520 - 00:23:58.170

States, you see organized crime in there. I think that would occur here. Okay, So you have different points of view, and this is a call in show, so we're going to take a call. We have a caller on line one. Go ahead with your call. Hello?

00:23:59.080 - 00:24:18.060

You're on the air. Do you have a question? Yeah. Yeah. My My question is, yes, the other night. Hello? Yes, you're on the air. Okay. The other night I was walking down the street around Powell Street area with my wife, and I was not attack, but

00:24:18.640 - 00:24:32.140

24 I would say 24 year old and a maybe a 16 year old young female came up to me and asked me if I wanted some company. Um, I was with my wife, and I didn't enjoy this at all. Plus, my wife didn't, and all I

00:24:32.140 - 00:24:46.660

can say is, thank God the vice squad was there, and I want to tell Lieutenant Gross word him and his men are doing an excellent job. All right. People are now. There are some people on your side, but I think that it really is a minority.

00:24:47.040 - 00:25:05.490

I don't know why we have these various committees on crime. If the people who are our law enforcement officers are not familiar with what has already been established now, the president's crime commission as far back as 1967 said that prostitutes play a small and declining role

00:25:05.500 - 00:25:23.930

in organized crime. The report to the Department of Justice also said that if prostitution were not a crime, there would be no need for organized crime to be around. Uh, so I mean what you said. I think that the public is often told that prostitutes bring

00:25:23.930 - 00:25:44.080

crime. And what never comes out in the public is that that's absolutely not true, that the laws themselves create the vulnerability that a prostitute faces to extortion to pimps, to kidnapping that if you were a legal person operating under the law, that you wouldn't be vulnerable.

00:25:44.090 - 00:26:00.680

Uh, that often prostitutes are also vulnerable to mass murderers to people who just think that you're fair game because you like Legal Party Prescott police. Would you like to see an end to prostitution? What? What do you what is the real goal here for us pros?

00:26:00.680 - 00:26:18.550

Is it is it to to end prostitution through bettering economic situations, or to simply make things easier, in fact, to decriminalize its both? Really, it's that since we have the laws right now, we would like to make working conditions a lot easier right now. We would

00:26:18.560 - 00:26:32.040

also like to have viable economic alternatives where no woman has to be a prostitute. We feel that it is a crime that the true crime is that in the United States, women are still earning 59 cents nationally to every dollar a man earns, and that as

00:26:32.040 - 00:26:49.080

long as that situation continues, there will be women will be selling and men will be buying. And that issue has got to be addressed. Lieutenant Girls What What do you think of these goals? Well, first, I sincerely believe that they say prostitution is a victimless crime.

00:26:49.090 - 00:27:05.310

Well, it's not. A victim was trying. The prostitutes themselves are the victims number one. That's the one point I would really like to make. The next point is that we not only have female prostitutes in San Francisco, there's a good number of male prostitutes. So if

00:27:05.310 - 00:27:21.110

we're talking the same language just speaking on the women's side of the man's side to, of course, they were already time. If you know we still need to do something, we'd like to give you some information, and that is if you'd like to get in touch

00:27:21.110 - 00:27:42.500

with us pros. You can please write to US prostitutes Collective Post Office box 1451 to San Francisco, California 94114 or call 55896 to 8. I'd like to thank you both for coming down. It's a fascinating issue. A very important issue to everybody on both sides. Thanks

00:27:42.500 - 00:28:12.360

a lot. Thank you all for watching. I'm Johnny Barnes. Selvin. Goodnight. See you again next week. Mm, Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Can Yeah. Mhm. I just Mm.