Looks like the Peoria Police Department has its own page of prostitution-related arrests.
Apparently there were complaints, because this one comes with dating advice from the Chief of Police:
If your wife is not meeting your needs, try meeting hers. It can do wonders. No wife at home? Try finding a decent woman whom you can love, cherish and respect and then make her your wife. If you are not willing to put in that kind of effort, try a dinner and a movie.
So, we should barter for sex with food and entertainment instead of doing a straight cash deal?
Sigh. I understand that local residents and businesses don’t want streetwalkers in front of their places. But I don’t think hassling the street trade is a good way to handle the issue of prostitution.
Anyway, a little later, Chief Settingsgaard writes:
It was stated in your article that posting photographs may destroy families, cost people their jobs and even lead to suicides. Allow me to offer an alternative thought. It is criminality that leads to these dire consequences, not the act of holding criminals accountable.
No Chief, it’s both. Punishing people for crimes—whether it’s their photo on a web site, a few years in jail, or a needle in the arm—is bad for the people being punished. They suffer. That’s the point of punishment. There’s no getting around that.
The idea, the hope, is that the people being punished deserve to suffer. Another way of looking at it is that the pain they suffer should be offset by the good that comes from discouraging their behavior.
I just don’t see that in this case.
(I should add that Chief Settingsgaard doesn’t write the laws, he only enforces them. Also, from what I read, he’s a reform Chief who is expected to raise the standards of the Peoria police department.)
(Hat tip, Kerry Howley at Reason.)
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