Prostitutes

Tucked away by the railroad tracks near Sepulveda Boulevard is a bleak Van Nuys neighborhood where bravely tended bungalows are surrounded by aging apartments and industrial parks, check-cashing outlets, motels and other signposts of transiency and quick-hit crimes. At night its dead-end streets come alive with sex--perfunctory acts performed by prostitutes who walk Sepulveda and, to a lesser degree, Van Nuys Boulevard.

How do you make a prostitute see the light? If you ask Romana Catton, she may well tell you to throw a party. That's what members of Catton's Chisholm Estates neighborhood watch did Sunday, holding a community block party that raised $318 for the group's prostitution prevention program. Supported by a raffle, the funds will allow homeowners to buy 10 floodlights to discourage prostitutes from plying their trade in front of their homes.

Los Angeles City Councilman Howard Finn on Wednesday proposed that the city use its zoning powers to combat prostitution in such problem areas as Sepulveda and Ventura boulevards in the San Fernando Valley. Finn introduced legislation to regulate motels that rent rooms for less than 24 hours. Such motels have become havens for prostitutes because of their low rates for hourly use of rooms, according to police.

Female police officers posing as prostitutes worked two nights on Harbor Boulevard, authorities said Thursday, and business was steady. A total of 38 men--an average of more than three an hour--were arrested on suspicion of soliciting prostitutes last Friday and Wednesday night, Police Lt. Larry Hodges said.

Vice officers who posed as prostitutes and their customers arrested four streetwalkers and 20 men who solicited them along Pasadena's Colorado Boulevard, sheriff's deputies said Thursday. One man was arrested after he left a 15-month-old baby in his car while he went into a motel with a prostitute, Deputy Van Mosley said. The man was later released and the baby returned to him.

Red telephone boxes may be the picture of quaint England, but as far as the government is concerned, the sexually explicit pictures posted inside them every day are anything but quaint. Home Secretary Jack Straw wants Miss Naughty Knickers and her fellow prostitutes to quit using public phone booths as bulletin boards to advertise their services. Prostitution is legal in Britain, although solicitation is not.

The body of a 20th prostitute has been found in Iran less than a week after the capture of a suspect who confessed to killing prostitutes for "the sake of God." The killings have forced officials in Iran to acknowledge the existence of widespread prostitution in the fundamentalist Muslim country. The latest victim was found on a highway near Tehran, the Jam-e Jam newspaper reported. Editors at the state-owned daily said the body was discovered Wednesday.

Six weeks after police launched a novel campaign to fight vice along Harbor Boulevard, Santa Ana officials say traffic congestion has been reduced but prostitution continues to flourish. So police have mapped out a new tactic: Two-officer squads will shadow groups of suspected of being prostitutes, check for any outstanding arrest orders and generally try to persuade them to take their business elsewhere. "If we can persuade them that they can't make as much money here as they could in Los Angeles or somewhere else, they may leave Santa Ana," Sgt. Bill Scheer said Wednesday.

For some time, officials in this industrial, working-class community have felt that the city was being cheated out of its fair share of taxes from motel-room rentals. Mayor John S. Sheehy said officials also suspected that one of the reasons motels were underpaying the 8% levy was that many of their customers were prostitutes.

Los Angeles police and city officials told a gathering of Sepulveda Boulevard-area residents and business people Tuesday night that steps are being taken, including undercover investigations, to combat prostitution and related crime on the street. Since Jan. 1, Capt. Mark Stevens said, a task force of a sergeant and 12 officers has made "in excess of 400 arrests" on Sepulveda Boulevard north of Roscoe Boulevard, reducing street crime in that area by 25%. In addition, Sgt.