Pubdate: Fri, 24 May 2002
Source: Daily Advertiser, The (LA)
Copyright: 2002 South Louisiana Publishing
Contact:  http://www.theadvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1670
Author: Edward J. Hannie, DDS, FAGD
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n873/a05.html

TWO BREAK LAW BUT ONLY ONE PUNISHED

The Daily Advertiser's May 6 front-page article, "Drugs drive 
Lafayette sex trade," described our area's problem of prostitution as 
one that is caused in large part by drug addiction and sees drug 
treatment as its solution.

Your May 10 editorial, "Addiction treatment offers weapon against 
prostitution," points out treatment will not eliminate the problem, 
but describes this approach as an "enlightened attitude" in the 
struggle to control the amount of prostitution.

That is all well and good. However, drug treatment for prostitutes 
addresses only one of the law-breaking parties. While the drug-driven 
crime of prostitution begins with the prostitute (i.e., a person 
committing a crime for money in order to have money to pay for 
committing a second crime), the other law-breaker is the man who 
illegally exchanges money for sex. We arrest one of the law breakers 
and ignore the other. Why?

The effort a few years ago to publish the names of the men caught 
engaging in this crime lasted for only a short period of time because 
the so-called "solid, upstanding citizens" who were named in public 
created a furor claiming this was an invasion of their privacy.

However, not punishing the male offenders publicly has allowed them 
to freely seek to break the law again ... and maybe again and again.

With today's epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases there is 
tremendous danger posed to both the man and the woman having illicit, 
pass-around sex. Think of the wives and any possible future sex 
partners of the men who are infected by the prostitute with some 
forms of STD that, in turn, is passed along to an innocent party or 
parties.

Printing the names of the men who have broken the law by paying for 
sex would be fair and would be another weapon in attempting to solve 
the problem of prostitution.

It seems naming offenders who were caught paying for sex is just as 
fair as the publishing of the names and pictures of other types of 
sexual offenders when they establish residence in a community. After 
all, both committed sexual crimes and no one objects to the latter.

Edward J. Hannie, DDS, FAGD

Lafayette
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