How the radical left makes it hard to clear hookers from areas like Roosevelt Ave. in Queens

Roosevelt Avenue in Queens has recently seen a sharp rise in the numbers and visibility of women openly offering sex for money in the shadow of the elevated 7 train.East New York’s “Penn Track” section has also emerged as a seedy open-sex market, as nearly naked women offer themselves to men in cars, supervised by pimps who use brutality to manage those who are essentially their slaves.These scenes were familiar sights in the city three decades ago, when prostitutes freely roamed the streets near the Lincoln Tunnel or pursued the hotel trade on Sixth Avenue near Central Park.The era of “broken windows” policing and the rise of online “escort” advertising mostly eliminated the plague of open sex for sale. But in recent years, state and city “reforms,” an abandonment of quality-of-life policing and the migrant influx has led to a return of the seedy cityscapes.The good news? Mayor Eric Adams is having cops crack down on areas like Roosevelt Avenue, and new Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch is again emphasizing quality-of-life issues, like prostitution plaguing neighborhoods — with plans to hold cops accountable for addressing them.Still, eliminating the scourge completely will be difficult, thanks to opposition from the left and the handcuffs they’ve put on cops.Over the years, reformers have insisted that many prostitutes were victims of coercion and violence.This prompted New York to divert many of those arrested in the sex trade to special courts aimed at providing services to women now treated as victims rather than criminals.The courts link women arrested for prostitution “to tailored counseling and case management services, which range from shelter and health care to immigration assistance, drug treatment, and counseling.”Cops also began focusing on johns rather the hookers themselves, an approach backed by some feminist groups but opposed by organizations such as the ACLU, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which favor comp...