The government shutdown of Backpage.com this year sought to curtail the type of sex-for-sale classified ads that made the company infamous. Months later, though, the closure has prompted an increase in sex trafficking on San Francisco streets.

Reported crimes related to pimping and sex trafficking have more than tripled in 2018 — with 67 through August, up from 21 during the same period last year, according to police. Meanwhile, officers have made more arrests than previous years as much of the activity had been hidden online, said David Stevenson, a city police spokesman.

Violence against both sex workers and people soliciting sex is a concerning trend as well, said Sgt. Antonio Flores of the department’s special victims and human trafficking unit.

“A few sex workers are becoming violent,” he said. “Then there are those that tend to prey on sex workers.”

Backpage.com, long criticized by authorities for being an online brothel, was shut down in April after an FBI investigation, and CEO Carl Ferrer was charged with money laundering. The website’s closure came after Congress passed laws that effectively made websites hosting adult ads responsible for the postings of users.

The new laws have had a side effect on San Francisco streets, said Pike Long, deputy director of St. James Infirmary, a peer-based health and safety clinic for sex workers in San Francisco.

“Without being able to advertise online,” Long said, “a huge number of sex workers were forced to go outside, and many have reported that former pimps came out of the woodwork offering to ‘manage’ their business again since they were now rendered unable to find and screen clients online.”

St. James saw a spike in street-based sex work in the month after Backpage.com was shut down, Long said, and screening clients has become more difficult because of the closure of other sites popular in the industry.

“The very bill that was supposed to stop trafficking has quite literally given formerly irrelevant traffickers new life,” Long said.

Carol Leigh coined the term “sex workers” about 40 years ago and now advocates for them as director of Bayswan, the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network, in San Francisco. She said sex workers who are unable to advertise online or screen clientele are being forced into increasingly vulnerable circumstances.

“I hear from sex workers talking about suicide attempts,” she said. “I hear about some considering working for exploitative ‘managers’ because of limited options.”

Send tips to The Scanner Send ideas or tips about public safety in the Bay Area to scanner@sfchronicle.com.

Read More

By law, sex trafficking crimes are defined as situations in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform the act is underage.

Reducing sex trafficking through enforcement is difficult, Flores said, because it often requires a precarious buy-in by the victim. Police often struggle to get sex workers to testify against their traffickers in court, and many fear getting locked up or blacklisted in the industry.

In December, San Francisco police issued an internal bulletin to prioritize the safety of sex workers, who may ordinarily be subject to arrest, if they are the victims or witness sexual assault, human trafficking or other violent crimes. Since then, officers have been working to assure sex workers they will not be prosecuted if they come forward, Flores said.

“One sex worker didn’t believe us at first,” he said. “We had to show her the policy at the hospital.”

Over the borderline

What began as an airport meet-up may end in jail time after a Customs and Border Patrol agent working at San Francisco International Airport was charged with secretly filming a woman during sex.

Scott Inouye was on the clock at the airport when he met a woman from South Korea, authorities said. The two began dating, but before long the woman grew suspicious that he was recording their sexual encounters without her permission.

A search warrant confirmed the woman’s suspicions, police said, and Inouye was arrested in August. On Wednesday, the 31-year-old from San Bruno pleaded not guilty to charges of illegally filming the victim and for attempting to dissuade her from cooperating with authorities.

Inouye has been free on $60,000 bail and is barred from contacting the woman or distributing the alleged videos.

So far in 2018, several Border Patrol agents and federal immigration officers have been arrested in California, running counter to President Trump’s rhetoric that the people crossing the border are bringing crime to the country.

In April, Brandon Herrera was taken into custody in Oceanside (San Diego County) after police allegedly found the 37-year-old sleeping in his pickup truck with heroin and an illegal rifle.

In August, both a Border Patrol agent and former homeland security agent were arrested.

Harvey Booker, 70, was indicted in August on charges that he strangled a traveler who was attempting to cross the San Ysidro border, which is the nation’s busiest. That same month, John Jacobs Olivas of Riverside was indicted on charges of raping a woman twice and sexually assaulting another.

The 43-year-old, who previously worked for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, pleaded not guilty after allegedly telling victims that police wouldn’t believe them if they reported him. He was released on $50,000 bail.

Two questions for Fremont Police Chief Kimberly Petersen

This year, Kimberly Petersen became Fremont’s first female police chief, as well as the city’s first openly gay chief. We asked about her plans for protecting the public in the fourth-biggest city in the Bay Area.

Q: What do you hope to achieve in your first year as police chief and long-term?

A: Our primary internal focus this year will be to fill several staff vacancies in core service positions. Once we fill the current vacancies, the next eight to 12 months will be focused on training our new staff for increasingly difficult but rewarding jobs. Without staff, we can’t provide effective policing.

Externally, our goals and priorities are to focus on strategies that reduce residential and auto burglaries, reduce injury collisions and increase our community connections. Long-term, we intend to continue using innovative, intelligence-led crime-fighting strategies and partnerships with our community to keep Fremont one of the safest largest cities in the Bay Area.

Q: Women make up less than 10 percent of the police force in Fremont. What changes do you hope to see within the Police Department?

A: I would love to see the percentage increase. Women tend to be strong verbal communicators. Most of the day-to-day activities of our officers, (community service officers) and detention officers involve interactions with community members where communication skills are critical to successful policing.

We need both men and women of varied backgrounds who are dedicated, service-oriented and of high integrity to join our team. We are always looking for ways to attract a more diverse workforce in order to be more reflective of our community.

Roundup: The biggest crime news from the past week

• The Diocese of Oakland announced that it will soon release a report of clergy members who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse.

• A longtime investigator in Alameda County admitted he accepted bribes over a six-year period from a gangster in Oakland’s Chinatown.

• A San Francisco shopkeeper’s insanity defense didn’t hold up as he was found guilty of killing two competing merchants at Fisherman’s Wharf.

• In yet another hit for the Alameda County jails, a former inmate filed a federal lawsuit accusing four former deputies of allowing another inmate to repeatedly douse him with urine and feces.

• A wild court hearing ended with the man believed to be the Gypsy Hill Killer getting two life sentences for the rape and murder of two young women in 1976.

The Scanner is a weekly feature from The Chronicle’s breaking news team featuring stories from the crime beat. Follow the team on Twitter: @meganrcassidy, @EvanSernoffsky, @SarRavani, @Josh_Koehn, @ctuan, @gwendolynawu, @ted_d_andersen