ESCONDIDO -- On a Wednesday night in February, 29-year-old "Alexie" found herself handcuffed. Beside her in the back of a San Diego police car on El Cajon Boulevard: two other suspected prostitutes busted in a sting. View A Video

By Saturday, Alexie had moved her business to a hotel room in Escondido, sitting with her laptop and fielding calls from customers who saw her ad on the online classified site Craigslist.org. Within a week, she noticed that the two women who were next to her in that San Diego police car had moved shop to Escondido, too.

Welcome to the nomadic -- and increasingly Web-centered -- world of prostitution. When one town cracks down, women take their business and their laptops to another town, Alexie said.

Since the El Cajon Boulevard crackdowns in early February, she said, Escondido has become a choice stop for prostitutes like her already arrested or others fearful they're next. In one economically depressed, hotel-rich square of northern Escondido, businesspeople, passers-by and police have seen a surge in the numbers of young women dressed in not much jaunting through town, often in broad daylight.

Police say they have stepped up enforcement, but not everyone agrees they're doing enough.

Alexie noted one advantage in the city.

"The reason most girls come here is you get the street play," she said. "When Craigslist is slow, you can go out on the street and get jobs."

Police took note.

"We noticed a lot more of the ladies on the street," said Lt. Craig Carter, who supervises the property crimes division and special investigations unit. Typically, prostitution follows the weather: slow to nonexistent in winter, heavy in spring, summer and fall, Carter said. But this year was different.

The Police Department conducted three anti-prostitution stings in February and made nine arrests, Carter said. That's up from no stings and no arrests last February. They've already made seven arrests so far this March, up from five in March 2007, he said.

However, activity seems to be slowing: An operation by four detectives and two police officers Thursday night yielded only one arrest, Carter said.

Alexie has a theory why.

"They're cracking down," she said of the police. "The cops are actually doing a pretty good job out here."

'Blatant as I've ever seen'

But for some local businesspeople, the police response hasn't been adequate to the task.

One businessman, named Ryan, moved to Escondido six months ago and called prostitution in the city "as blatant as I've ever seen" -- and he's lived in Chula Vista and National City.

Like other businesspeople in the area, Ryan agreed to talk only if his last name and business wouldn't be used. But he said he thinks police are distracted and putting too much emphasis, and resources, on traffic checkpoints, which he said disproportionately target illegal immigrants.

"They're more concerned about honest guys getting jobs on the street corner than they are girls getting jobs on the same corner," he said.

Lt. Bob Benton said the comparison misses the mark. First, he said the traffic checkpoints do address a legitimate safety concern -- unlicensed drivers -- and that the number of hit-and-run accidents has dropped since the checkpoints began.

He rejected the notion that they target illegal immigrants. And he pointed out that the department does more crackdowns on prostitution than checkpoints.

Carter said he ordered his vice squad to do at least one anti-prostitution operation a week when things got bad in February. But he called operations "invisible enforcement," comprised of four detectives in unmarked cars arranging rendezvous and calling in the squad cars to arrest the women or their brokers.

Traffic checkpoints, by contrast, are highly visible operations. But they're actually less frequent than the prostitution crackdowns: two a month versus at least one prostitution raid a week, Carter said.

Moving to Escondido

While the area that prostitution thrives hasn't changed, the demographics have, according to people involved. Dashin Ansley, 34, whose job as a sign-twirler gives him a front-row view of the action, noticed a major change last fall.

"It was about the middle of last year when all the new faces starting showing up," he said. "What's coming up now is San Diego girls."

In the few years prior to that, he said, prostitutes in Escondido tended to be locals, many of them homeless.

But Carter said he hasn't noticed the trend toward more outsiders, and that prostitutes have always tended to be nomadic, going wherever there was business both in California and nationally.

Friday night, the Web site Craigslist.org offered 805 advertisements under the "erotic services" category in San Diego County, including every area of North County, featuring soft-porn photos and headlines such as "Sweet girl loves to be naughty."

There in the "erotic services" category is where men go for action -- and where women post ads for it, free of charge, said Oceanside police Vice and Enforcement Sgt. Richard Browning.

"Alexie" was contacted by the North County Times through her Craigslist ad and interviewed for about an hour at Taco Bell on Escondido Boulevard.

She said she bought her laptop for $400 on sale. She rents a hotel room, uses the wireless Internet access to place ads with titles such as "Temptation at its best," and sits in her room fielding calls from customers on her cell phone.

"I tell them to drive into the hotel parking lot," she said, "and I wait until I can see them from the hotel room and ask them what kind of car they're driving. If everything checks out, then I'll tell them my room number."

Money changes hands, she said, and the rendezvous begins.

Stinging Craigslist

Carter said his department has been working with Oceanside's, which has been conducting Craigslist stings for 2 1/2 years, and will be up and running with the new stings by April.

Sgt. Browning of Oceanside said his department does four to six prostitution stings a month, including at least one targeting ads on Craigslist.

He said prostitution appears as active as ever in Oceanside -- the department made 158 prostitution-related arrests from January 2007 to this February -- but far less visible due to the electronic nature of the meetings.

"Visible crime has dropped significantly," he said. "If you drive down Coast Highway on a Friday night, it doesn't look like it did five years ago."

The El Cajon Police Department has taken an even bolder step and seen a significant decline in activity said Lt. Tim Henton, investigations division commander.

Last fall, the department started posting the names and photos of convicted prostitutes and johns on its Web site, asking the public's help in reporting repeat activity by them.

They put them on "geographic probation," similar to a gang injunction, which makes them liable to arrest simply for being in prostitution-rich areas of the city.

The tactic has drawn protests from some civil-rights and privacy activists, he said, but ultimately has proven effective.

Officers have conducted Craiglist stings throughout last year, he said, and saw a steady decline in numbers of women willing to come to El Cajon for meetings.

El Cajon cracks down

By this January, he said, "there were many comments from (suspected) prostitutes about police coming to El Cajon," he said. "Word had gotten out which is a positive thing for our community."

Carter said he plans to push for a similar approach in Escondido. He said he recently started releasing names and photos of prostitutes and johns arrested to news organization as a deterrent for others.

But he said police work best with the cooperation of hotel managers and employees.

"If no place will rent to (known prostitutes and their customers), that in itself with solve the problem," he said, noting that "we have cooperation from some and not from others."

Joy Heo, manager at the Palm Tree Lodge since 2000, is in the former group, he said. She said that while prostitution activity at the lodge has ebbed and flowed through the years, police attention to it has been consistent all along.

"The (Escondido) Police Department has been really good about it," she said, renting out rooms to arrange stings on occasion and checking their guest lists at least weekly and arresting anyone with outstanding arrest warrants.

An employee at the nearby Wagon Wheel restaurant, which overlooks the lodge's parking lot, said illegal activity has dropped significantly there.

A year ago, the employee said, the frequent coming-and-going of prostitutes and johns served as a racy reality show for diners there. A year later, the employee said, the show rarely plays anymore.

Contact staff writer Dan Simmons at (760) 740-5426 or dsimmons@nctimes.com.