• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Hookers, Johns and the Internet

clarsct

Illuminator
C
Joined
Mar 14, 2005
Messages
4,867
A town near where I live is about to start posting the faces fo the "Johns" they arrest for soliciting prostitution.

Link:http://www.pjstar.com/stories/070805/PHI_B6U0PAB3.033.shtml


Not convicted, mind...just arrested.

Is this an invasion of privacy? If you were innocent, and were declared innocent in a court of law, could you sue them for defamation of character?


And, to steal a line from Dr. Adequate, what is the positive side of illegal prostituiton? What benefits are given to society? What benefits come from 'shaming' these johns?
 
Sex is bad, mmmkay.

Repeat until the sexually-repressed majority votes you into office, then enact laws that reflect their outdated neuroses and Freudian issues.
 
Their going to start doing that in Chicago too. I predict that it won't do a thing to stop prostitution. I doubt that will win me the $1 million though. :p

If you must pick up street prostitutes, remember that the real ones move around, the decoy cop has to stay put. Also, the real one will not want to discuss money before she gets into your car. I imagine that the johns that get caught by the decoys are inexperienced rookies, the frequent user will know the difference. But IMHO, you'd have to be crazy to put yourself at risk of AIDS from prostitutes, especially the crack whores walking the street.
 
:mad:

I'm not an expert and I'm unqualified to really say if such tactics are effective or even desirable in the grand scheme of things. I trust they are not.
 
14th Amendment

I would think that the "equal protection" clause of the US Constitution would mean that if the police wish to offer public postings of people arrested for one set of crimes, they would have to post the mug shots of ALL arrested and not discriminate according to the type of violation.
(By 'posting', this would include in newspapers, or on pin-up bulletin boards in public places like supermarkets or WalMarts).

The clause grants all people "equal protection of the laws," which means that the states must apply the law equally and cannot give preference to one person or class of persons over another.
 
There are a lot of problems with this procedure IMO.

The first issue, as you mentioned above, is the fact that people who are not yet convicted (in other words: innocent) are punished. This is a contradiction to the phrase "innocent until proven guilty".

Then there's of course the invasion of privacy you also mentioned. It also seems to touch the legal certainity and equality issues.

A more categorical issue is the question if the government should regulate the sexual behaviour between two consenting adults at all, and if it does, if it makes sense for it to make a normative decision about the actual state of morality. (My answers, btw, are "no" and "no").

And of course there's the issue of the practical value of exposing the johns. A short-term decrease of illegal prostitution might follow, but I predict that it would take only a few years to reach the same levels as before.

As far as a lawsuit is concerned: I don't know much about american law but my guess is, that if the pictures are published due to a respective law (not sure if that's the case here), there's not much you can do about it in a lawsuit. You'd have more prospect of success in fighting the law according to which the pictures have been published than fighting the publication.
 
All good points.

I don't know if you could fight the actual publication, I was thinking more of money damages due to defamation after the fact.

I'm not sure any small city could afford that if they lost.

The 14th Amendment was an angle I hadn't thought of at all. The others are posted in the paper, along with the prostitution arrests, but not on the web. I guess a case could be made there.

Any legal eagles out there?
 
It looks like they are planning on posting the pictures of the people who've been fined not just arrested (presumably it’s considered to be akin to a speeding ticket offence). Does that make a difference for the constitutional issue people have raised?
 
Darat said:
It looks like they are planning on posting the pictures of the people who've been fined not just arrested (presumably it’s considered to be akin to a speeding ticket offence). Does that make a difference for the constitutional issue people have raised?
Click to expand...

It would certainly make a difference concerning the "presumption of innocence" part since people wouldn't be punished without trial (and thus without a chance to defend themselves). If that's the case, as you state, there still remain some other constitutional issues.
 
Re: 14th Amendment

webfusion said:
I would think that the "equal protection" clause of the US Constitution would mean that if the police wish to offer public postings of people arrested for one set of crimes, they would have to post the mug shots of ALL arrested and not discriminate according to the type of violation.
(By 'posting', this would include in newspapers, or on pin-up bulletin boards in public places like supermarkets or WalMarts).

The clause grants all people "equal protection of the laws," which means that the states must apply the law equally and cannot give preference to one person or class of persons over another.
Click to expand...

If you follow this logic, it would be a discrimination to punish e.g. murder and theft differently. The publication is (part of) the punishment, not a by-product thereof like the publication of arrested criminals in the paper.
 
Surely it is up to us to differentiate between 'arrested' and 'convicted'. The media always seem to muddle the 2 (deliberately?) but is the opposite not much much worse?

A society with secret arrests is far more dangerous, justice must be done openly, and part of this must be allowing the public 'see' who is being arrested and charged with what.

Prostitution (like many other examples) is a victimless crime, and should not be a crime anyway .. but that's another argument!
 
pjh said:
Prostitution (like many other examples) is a victimless crime, and should not be a crime anyway .. but that's another argument!
Click to expand...
I'm with you, legalize it. However I don't think that it is victimless (one needs to define victim). I just had this debate and I'm not really interested in doing it again let me just note that I disagree. Of paramount importance though is that I absolutely think prostitution should be legalized.
 
Of course, Michael Jackson being arrested for pedophilia and the whole world knowing about it before his trial, and subsequent non-conviction, didn't raise any eyebrows...

Hell, the whole world knew about it before he was even arrested!

Why the sudden concern about anonymous Johns?
 
WildCat said:
But IMHO, you'd have to be crazy to put yourself at risk of AIDS from prostitutes, especially the crack whores walking the street.
Click to expand...

For sure.

But if drugs were legalized, and hooking was legalized, then only housewives whose families needed a second income to pay for their kids' vouchered education would be prostituting themselves...

ETA: I mean, there weren't any crack whores at the legal Mustang Ranch in Nevada now were there?
 
Luke T. said:


Why the sudden concern about anonymous Johns?
Click to expand...

Because, at least in the United States, slander and libel laws are different when we're talking about "public figures."
 
new drkitten said:
Because, at least in the United States, slander and libel laws are different when we're talking about "public figures."
Click to expand...

Was Scott Peterson a public figure?

Was Michael Jackson's income and personal life not affected by the news?
 
Information about arrests is already in the public domain. In most (all?) states, you can use the internet to find out the entire saga of a crime story including every hearing, motion, etc.

The only question would be whether it is OK to give extra publicity to certain crimes. I would think the legal answer would be yes. If not, the police department could just make the web page more inclusive.

I guess the idea is that johns are more likely to be shamed away from committing their "crime" than other people. It seems like a stupid measure to prevent two consenting adults from engaging in perfecting reasonable commercial arrangement.

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
I guess the idea is that johns are more likely to be shamed away from committing their "crime" than other people. It seems like a stupid measure to prevent two consenting adults from engaging in perfecting reasonable commercial arrangement.

CBL
Click to expand...

Two consenting single adults?
 
Prostitution is legal in Denmark:

The vast majority of Danish men who pay for sex with a prostitute are in relationships, according to a Danish study published on Monday.

Seventy-one percent of men who sought out prostitutes had a steady partner, including through marriage, the study by the Danish Centre for Research on Social Vulnerability showed.

Twenty percent of the clients were married.

The study debunked the myth that men seek out call girls because it is their only chance to have sex.
Click to expand...

http://www.neww.org.pl/en.php/news/news/1.html?&nw=1015&re=2
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom