S.L. detectives targeting teen prostitutes, pimps

It was a suggestion that might have repulsed her a few days earlier: sex for money.

But as a 15-year-old runaway, she said she didn't have many options. She'd been walking the streets of Salt Lake City talking with a woman she knew was working as a prostitute, a Salt Lake police report states.A man in a car stopped near her and asked if she was "dating." She knew the man was really asking if he could buy sex from her. She said no and started to walk away.

But the woman she was with encouraged her to go with him, the report said.

Afterward, the man took her to meet the woman who'd encouraged her to sell sex. The pair went to the home of another man. That's where police caught up with them.

As part of a new way to cut down on prostitution, detectives have been targeting underage prostitutes. Instead of prosecuting them, investigators try to reunite them with their families and use them as witnesses against the adults who lure them into the life of crime.

It's the tactic vice detectives have been taking for more than a year. Salt Lake police say it's cut down on the overall incidents of prostitution.

Salt Lake Police Lt. Phil Kirk said usually by this time of year police have arrested 60 to 100 circuit girls - women who travel around selling sex. So far this year, they've arrested only one circuit girl.

In this case, which happened about 2 a.m. April 3, two adults were arrested and the 15-year-old was booked into the Salt Lake County Juvenile Detention Center.