Sheriff Dart is seeking damages for, among other things, revenue that he and members of his department have lost because, as he puts it, “The business of shaking down prostitutes for protection money has frankly gone to Hell in a handbasket since these women have resorted to using craigslist. How are Chicago area cops supposed to supplement our incomes during these tough times if not through capitalism-as-usual?”
A tradition that has its roots before Al Capone ran the Windy City is in jeopardy of going the way of the pager and the answering machine. It seems that the process of disintermediation brought on by craigslist and the Internet threatens to do for Cook County’s finest what Travelocity and Orbitz have done for travel agents and what Monster and CareerBuilder have done for headhunters – cut out the middleman.
“It’s a crying shame that we now have to resort to buying a judge or two to ensure that the citizens of Cook County are safe from immoral women posting ads on the Internet, rather than standing on street corners and sitting on bar stools like they’re supposed to.”
Thank you. As a 65 yo "post-sexual", I don't follow the ins and outs of the sex trade. So I didn't stumble across Sheriff Dart's CL shakedown until last Friday (15 May '09). I've been shocked to discover that ONLY your blog and fewer that half a dozen comments to other blogs have noted the long term historical connection between the Cook Country Sheriff's office and protection revenue from prositution. After '68 police riots, I did some reading on Chicago/Cook Country history. My memory is vauge, but think I recall that the first scandal involving the Sheriff's office and prostitution revenue happened within 5 years of the county's creation.
ReplyDeleteEveryone else seems to be taking Dart seriously and not raising the obivious question, "Had CL lowered your cut?"
It gets stranger. Maybe Dart and Madigan are "black swans", highly unlikely phenomena that actually exsit. But when you consider, the state A.G. allience, several from Southern States with traditions of "court house gangs" that control rural prositution, and others from states with large cities with histories of corruption, I you have to ask how like is it that we have a flock of black swans.