Schenectady County, NY

Categories:

Tactics Used
Auto Seizure ✓
Buyer Arrests ✓
Cameras ✓
Community Service ✓
Employment Loss ✓
Identity Disclosure ✓
IT Based Tactics ✓
John School ✓
Letters ✓
License Suspension ✓
Neighborhood Action ✓
Public Education ✓
Reverse Stings ✓
SOAP Orders ✓
Web Stings ✓

Schenectady County is located about 20 miles northwest of Albany in upstate New York. Its population is about 158,000, and its county seat is the city of Schenectady (with about 67,000 of the county’s residents).

Street prostitution has been reported in Schenectady for over forty years, and in the early 1980s police had identified the city and surrounding areas as a “stop” on a major domestic sex trafficking network (referred to then as a “pimp circuit”) that included cities in central Pennsylvania and upstate New York. Prostitution rings are known to still exist in the city through 2019. Among the associated problems documented have been cases of child endangerment, including a 2007 case in which a prostituted woman was arrested for child endangerment for snorting cocaine from her infant’s stomach between sex buyers. Other smaller towns within Schenectady County have had similar problems; for example, in February 2019, a Rotterdam man was arrested and charged with three felony counts of possessing child sexual abuse material (i.e., child pornography). The investigation began through an online tip, and Rotterdam police were assisted by the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force and the New York State Police Computer Crimes Unit.

To combat these and other crimes, the Schenectady Police Department has conducted reverse stings since 1978. The first operation utilized two undercover female officers, who posed as prostituting women, and 19 sex buyers were arrested and spent a weekend in jail. Through the 1980s and early 1990s, SPD officers furthered efforts by conducting frequent, large-scale sex buyer stings. Operations are still conducted on a routine basis, and have at times employed the use of surveillance cameras. Since 1980, the Schenectady Daily Gazette has publicized the names of all arrestees. More recently, multiple online news sources have included the sex buyer identities in their coverage. For example, in July 2019, Schenectady police arrested three sex buyers in a combined sting/reverse sting, and posted photos and other identifiers in news releases.

In February, 2023, nine sex buyers were arrested during a Schenectady Police Special Investigations Unit prostitution detail in the area of State Street and Swan Street. One of the arrested men was the former longtime head of the Schenectady Office of General Services, who served in the city from 1991 until leaving in 2014 for a post as director of operations at Empire State Plaza. All nine suspects arrested in the sting were each charged with Class A misdemeanor counts of Patronizing a Prostitute in the third degree, and their identities included in news reports.

Police have collaborated with neighborhood associations and encourage residents to report suspected prostitution activity. As a result, anti-demand initiatives have been largely well-received, and at times spurred by resident requests to hold sex buyers accountable for their actions. As early as September 1978, a Gazette reporter, unaware of the SPD’s plans to conduct its first reverse sting, spoke to several community members who urged police to arrest sex buyers in addition to prostituted women. In October 1993, mothers in the area offered to personally distribute warning pamphlets on behalf of police to sex buyers seen loitering in their neighborhood.

Key Partners

  • Schenectady County Sheriff’s Department
  • Schenectady Police Department
  • New York State Police
  • FBI

 

Key Sources

Street-Level Reverse Stings:

Identity Disclosure:

Neighborhood Action:

Cameras:

Sex Trafficking and Child Sexual Exploitation in the Area:

Background on Prostitution in the Area:

Documented Violence against Individuals Engaged in Prostitution in the Area:

State New York
Type County
Population 158089
Location
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