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Opening Arguments

Temptations

If you're thinking about buying some sex, you might want to hold off for a while.  I wouldn't recommend it in Fort Wayne at any rate:

The promise of sexual favors in exchange for cash lands nearly a dozen men behind bars. It was part of an undercover operation that went down last Friday.

[. . .]

Police say the people arrested responded to an online ad, showed up and agreed to pay for sexual favors. Officers say the price tag range was anywhere from $20 to $1,000.

Police warn they are just as up with the times as today's criminals and are using the Internet more to catch them.

But you might want to be careful in other cities, too. The sting here was part of a multi-state operation:

The days surrounding the Super Bowl weren't so super for more than 500 people arrested around the country on prostitution and other sex crime charges.

 

In a news release, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's Office announced Tuesday that it had coordinated the operation that involved law enforcement agencies in Illinois and seven other states.

During the "National Day of Johns Arrests" the agencies conducted stings in hotels, on the streets, in brothels and online over a 10-day period that ended Monday night.

Dart says 314 of the 565 arrests were men accused of soliciting sex.

There goes that damn Super Bowl again, ruining all our fun. By that, I mean it's one more case of the government being cavalier with our rights. When it comes to stings, there can be a fine line between legitimately catching the bad guys and illegitimately entrapping people by creating bad guys. I've always been bothered by those stories about police who set up phony pawn-shop operations and put the word out they're looking for stolen goods, then bust the people who bring in stolen goods. You can argue that people inclined to steal will do so eventually, even if police don't entice them into it. But it's also true that police are creating crime in order to solve it.

And that's the case with these prostitution busts, too. So maybe I see one of the cops' phony ads, and it gets me a little hot, and I think, well, why not? But if I don't see the ad, maybe the impulse goes away, and I never hire a prostitute in my life. If we give police our permission (at least implicitly, by saying nothing) to cultivate our temptations and use them against us, we're accepting a very warped idea of what the law should be.

Comments

Phil Marx
Wed, 02/08/2012 - 11:23pm

Hey, are you a cop?...

"No, and I'm not just saying that because there are no laws that bar me (I mean a cop) from lying to you about this."

Bob G.
Thu, 02/09/2012 - 10:06am

Leo:

I love the way they say the U/C operation "went down"...LMAO!

"National Day Of Johns Arrest"...you just can;t make this stuff up.

But...if we do give police that "permission", isn't that designed to target those with little if any self-control, and therefore are asking for trouble?

(which has been proven to occur on BOTH side of the "badge", as well)

 

Phil:

nice one.

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