A hip song about the tough life of a pimp wins an Oscar at a time when teenage prostitution is booming business in Las Vegas.

It's enough to make a vice cop cringe.

"If we sell that to kids, it tells them that society has given its approval," said Las Vegas police Detective Sgt. Gil Shannon, who's worked in vice since 1995 and makes no secret of his distaste for the song "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp," from the movie "Hustle and Flow."

"Who cares how tough it is for a pimp?" Shannon said. "It's tough to be a victim. It's tough to be a prostitute."

Shannon said that Las Vegas police have arrested prostitutes as young as 11 working the city's streets and hotel corridors. Over the years, the number of juveniles apprehended for prostitution in Las Vegas has soared, bolstered by pimps who are bringing teenagers here from other states to become part of the city's illegal sex-for-sale industry. Although some Nevada counties have legalized adult prostitution, Clark County has not.

So far this year, Shannon said, Las Vegas police have arrested more than 25 juvenile prostitutes, a figure that indicates that Las Vegas is well on track to equaling or exceeding the high numbers of past years. In 2004, Shannon said, 207 prostitutes under the age of 18 were arrested. In 1996, that figure was 72 arrests.

"Juvenile prostitution has been steadily increasing," Shannon said. "Typically, what happens is that the pimp sells the child a dream of a better life that turns out to be a lie."

And the lie sells, Shannon said. It draws in juveniles, mainly female, who come from a cross section of society. The public's perception that juvenile prostitutes are runaways who come mainly from urban ghettos and projects is false, Shannon said. The girls who end up being arrested in undercover vice operations include teenagers from families that are middle class and high income.

Shannon said that roughly half of the teen prostitutes apprehended in Las Vegas are from outside Nevada. The twin issues of juvenile prostitution and trafficking have garnered the attention of both local and federal law enforcement agencies.

In 2005, Chris Swecker, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, said in congressional testimony that the agency's Las Vegas Field Office was one of 14 in the nation reporting the highest incidences of children used in prostitution. Other problem areas included Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, St. Louis, Tampa, Fla., and Washington, D.C.

"Sex traffickers or pimps debriefed by the FBI indicate approximately 20-40 percent of the victims forced or recruited into prostitution are juveniles," Swecker said in his testimony. "As of today, 25 field offices are investigating child prostitution matters in support of the Innocence Lost National Initiative."

Innocence Lost is an ongoing federal effort to eradicate child prostitution. It's a cooperative effort between law enforcement and social services groups at all levels. Since its inception in 2003, the Innocence Lost initiative has resulted in more than 500 arrests, 70 indictments and 67 convictions. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 200 child victims have been rescued through the campaign.

The Las Vegas FBI office referred questions about trafficking in juvenile prostitutes to local police.

Shannon said that there has been a concerted effort by law enforcement to bring pimps to justice and to get help for underage girls arrested for prostitution.

Police work with two groups -- WestCare Nevada and Children of the Night -- to help teens who have been forced or drawn into prostitution.

WestCare Nevada administrators were not available last week. According to the organization's Web site, WestCare began its GIRRLS program in 2004. The program offers shelter and aid to females who've committed nonviolent offenses and are also victims of crime.

Children of the Night is a private not-for-profit organization based in California dedicated to working with prostitutes ages 11 to 17.

As a police officer working vice, Shannon has been an active voice in Carson City, seeking tougher penalties from the state Legislature for panderers and pimps. In 2005, Shannon successfully helped lobby for the ability to arrest and prosecute pimps based solely on the word of prostitutes. Prior to passage of Assembly bill 470, the testimony of a prostitute against a pimp required corroboration.

"These individuals have been victims of rape with curling irons, beatings with hangers, cigarette burns, shaved heads, murder and run over by vehicles," Shannon told a Senate committee on May 5. "These individuals are in need of our assistance."

Law enforcement's effort to crack down on trafficking and child prostitution is also reflected in U.S. District Court, where the docket is swelling with cases against individuals who've recruited girls from other states to work the underground sex trade in Las Vegas.

On March 3, Californian Mario Weicks was convicted by a federal jury for twice transporting a 15-year-old to Las Vegas to work as a prostitute. In addition, the 30-year-old Weicks had sex with the minor himself. He was arrested by Las Vegas police in 2004, near the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and St. Louis Avenue. Weicks, who has prior convictions for drug possession and assault, is scheduled to be sentenced May 26.

In May, Darwin Hayter is scheduled to be tried by federal prosecutors on charges of sex trafficking in children and transporting minors for prostitution. The indictment against Hayter alleges he brought two female minors from Aurora, Colo., to Las Vegas in June 2005 to engage in prostitution. He then took them to Los Angeles to prostitute them, according to the indictment.

Leajon Raymond Isaacs also faces a federal trial on charges of transporting and prostituting minors. In April, prosecutors are scheduled to show a jury evidence that Isaacs brought a minor from California to Las Vegas to work as a prostitute, and then transported the minor -- called "J" in the indictment -- to San Jose, Calif. The intent was to have the minor engage in illegal sexual activity, court documents said.

Both Hayter and Isaacs have pleaded innocent.

"This has been a problem for many years, and now it's growing by leaps and bounds," said Andrea Bertone, director of the Washington, D.C., resource and information group HumanTrafficking.org, which is funded by the U.S. State Department.

Trafficking in minors for prostitution is a complicated issue, Bertone said. It's getting more difficult to apprehend those orchestrating the crime because many are turning to the Internet, which reduces the odds of being caught in a police sting. Sex trafficking in minors who are from foreign countries is even more problematic because those working as prostitutes are afraid of being caught or deported.

In addition, Bertone said that nationally, there's really no reliable statistic to show how many minors are engaged in the sex industry and how extensive a problem trafficking is. That's something that law enforcement entities are going to have to address if they expect to show an accurate picture of the problem.

"The federal authorities are really focusing a tremendous amount of attention on minors forced into prostitution," Bertone said. "But it's a very hard issue to track."

Shannon said he also thinks it would help if children weren't exposed to glamorized images of what it is to be a pimp or a "ho."

"Kids are listening to pop music on the radio that says being a pimp is OK," Shannon said. "But it's not OK."