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Los Angeles City Council is considering sending "Dear John" letters to the registrants of cars seen in an area of San Fernando described as having a "thriving street prostitution problem". The plan would use automated license plate readers to identify vehicles that stopped in the area. Council member Nury Martinez claims "If you aren't soliciting, you have no reason to worry about finding one of these letters in your mailbox. But if you are, these letters will discourage you from returning."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/12/01/the-age-of-pre-crime-has-arrived/
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The Age of ‘Pre-Crime’ has Arrived
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"The subspace _W inherits the other 8 properties of _V. And there aren't
even any property taxes."
-- J. MacKay, Mathematics 134b
(Score: 5, Informative) by looorg on Wednesday December 02 2015, @05:59PM
This has previously been suggested in some other countries, such as Sweden. Even they didn't go thru with it and they even have that crazy law that half the prostitution transaction is legal while the other part isn't (legal to sell, illegal to buy). As I recall it was about five years ago now, they wanted to send brightly colored, purple, envelopes to the home addresses of suspected buyers (or renters) of prostitutes. The point was the shame the buyers and inform their poor wives. The Minister of Justice at the time apparently thought it was a fantastic idea. That is until she got totally ripped to shreds by every legal instance in the country. They did not go thru with the idea. So it's kind of interesting then that Los Angeles apparently is picking of the torch. They should be prepared to be sued out of the last dollar they have, the amount of letters sent in errors that will ruin peoples reputations will be staggering.
http://www.thelocal.se/20100319/25636 [thelocal.se]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 02 2015, @06:04PM
What??? False accusations of criminal activity bothers people?
Weird!
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 02 2015, @08:06PM
It's not crazy, it reflects the fact that the prostitute isn't the problem and focuses on the actual problem. That is the johns and pimps. It's like that hear now, a d none too soon.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday December 02 2015, @09:49PM
The problem is crack and heroin. We need far more mental health and drug treatment; I did first hand research for Mars, Ho!
(from the Notes section in the back of the book) [mcgrewbooks.com]
Buy 'em a beer and they'll tell you their life story. And usually will try to steal from you.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 04 2015, @04:05AM
How's it a problem if it's "willing buyer, willing seller"? The real problem I see is the lack of regulation and safe-guards which makes things dangerous[1].
Yeah it's terrible that prostitutes are "forced" to do stuff they don't like in order to earn big bucks. But I bet many of us are also "forced" to do stuff we don't like in order to earn smaller bucks. It's called a fucking job! ;)
[1] Stuff like streetwalking is dangerous because it's more likely the prostitute ends up in some unknown place with a stranger. If brothels were legal and properly regulated, then prostitutes would be just as at risk from getting abused by the brothel boss as fast food workers getting abused by their boss. e.g. you're probably going to get yelled at, but both bosses know that if they take things too far they might get in trouble.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by K_benzoate on Wednesday December 02 2015, @08:54PM
Sweden's prostitution laws seem incredibly insulting to women especially. It is based on the idea that women shouldn't or can't be held responsible for their side of the interaction. It's refusing to treat them as equal adult humans out of some misguided and flawed interpretation of feminism. But this is Sweden so I'm not surprised. It's the country whose Foreign Minister (Margot Wallström) announced that they would have security and foreign policy based on feminism. [newyorker.com] Sweden is also the country that lightens the skin of criminals before pixelating their faces for broadcast because they believe showing black criminals is racist.
Sending shaming letters is incredibly ill-conceived on many levels. Since it's just based on geography in this case, it WILL have false-positives. And although there are technically no damages done in a strictly legal sense, it could cause all sorts of problems socially for wrongfully accused individuals. Woe to the husband whose car breaks down in that neighborhood and has to explain to his wife why he got that letter.
You wouldn't see these sorts of things proposed if it wasn't assumed (probably rightly) that the vast majority of people buying sex will be men.
Climate change is real and primarily caused by human activity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 03 2015, @09:03AM
So basically, only go against terrorism that threats women? :-)
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday December 02 2015, @11:48PM
Which is why the only civilized response is to legalise prostitution.
In the country where I live, when AIDS became a threat, prostitutes were advised to use condoms, which makes sense. The police began arresting them if they caught them with condoms.
Eventually people woke up to the fact that there's a reason it's known as the oldest profession. No-one has ever managed to prevent prostitution, so why bother trying? Legalise and regulate it so that the prostitutes are safe and so are the johns and everyone's a winner.