In partial response to concerns raised by Eagle columnist Mark McCormick, the Wichita Police Department has changed slightly the Web site on which it posts photos of men and women arrested for prostitution-related crimes. McCormick was concerned about the police posting photos of the prostitutes, who may be victims themselves. The police acknowledged that concern but still is going to post the pictures. What it has changed, though, is that the Web site no longer archives photos older than 30 days, which might help arrested women put their past behind them.
Posted by Ross Stewart
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- Regular on Open thread 11/24
- okobserver on Open thread 11/24
- okobserver on It’s the stupidity about the economy
- donndublin on Open thread 11/24
- okobserver on It’s the stupidity about the economy
- ANTI on Open thread 11/24
- okobserver on Open thread 11/24
- XXX on Open thread 11/24
- donndublin on Open thread 11/24
- writerdog on It’s the stupidity about the economy
27 Comments
Wow, Mark you have found the cure for prostitution! Don’t post their pictures on a web site. I’ll bet you’ll find a cure for cancer next. What about the johns? Aren’t they victims, too? Is it still ok to put their picture on the net?Grow up. Prostitution has always been here, always will. See, Mark, it’s the sex thing. Photo…no photo, no difference,… Betcha.
I applaud the Wichita Police Dept. for trying to think outside the box while fighting crime. I agree that the changes recently prompted by Mark McCormick are good changes, though. I think this idea should be used for other crimes like DUI, shoplifting and tax evasion or tax delinquency.
Man, talk about ugly skanks.
Just because the WPD takes down the pictures and info after 30 days does not mean the past is erased. It might be from the WPD web site but there is this other little thing out there known as Google from which nothing is ever erased.
The best way to cure prostitution is to legalize it and allow outcall prostitution which would get it off the street. BTW most of them women don’t look like anything I would want touching me. In fact, some of them would have to pay me! A man would have to be very desparate to pay for that! 100 Viagra pills could not make me want that!
Oh yeah, I am sure legalizing it will cure it…
Where is the logic in that?
Did you mean that legalizing it will get if off the streets?
I still highly doubt it.
I am sorry but after looking at the pictures the first thought I have is: Well at least the Buffaloes are safe from being sexually molested! Prostitution is a ugly business… Unless you have at least three hundred dollars! But the point is valid in that many of the Street level Pros are also there because of disparate needs ether because of drug use or lack of real skills.(Damn D. Hadley is still working?)
It’s more about drugs than lack of skills…women today have many opportunites to earn a living in other ways..but the money is easy, there is no lack of customers, and addiction is so powerful that some women will sacrifice anything to stay high. It’s really a sad thing, most of the prostitutes I see when I make my rounds on South Broadway look like they have one foot in the grave. Staying high all the time and exposing one’s self to numerous sexual partners and other dangerous situtaions is pretty hard on the body and soul. These women should be pitied, not ridiculed or shamed. They need help.
Thank you Mary, well said.
In every discussion about prostitution the main issue is always about the prostitutes. But I would like to ask this question.
If there were no johns, then would there be prostitutes?
Why do we always want to condemn the prostitute but not the johns? Prostitution has been around since the beginning of time so legalizing would just bring it out into the public’s view. But, at least, legalizing prostitution would also bring out the johns into the public’s view. Perhaps this is the real reason people do not want to legalize prostitution?
I agree with Mary. But I also agree with Kev that prostitution should be legalize doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman doing it.
The DC madame is an example of people who are not drug addicts but just want to make some good money on the side and enjoy what they do.
Basically; Why is it illegal to sell what you can legally give away for free.
But I think there should be strict standards like there are in Europe. Such as health cards and body guards for protection. Just like strip joints, if somebody gets out of line, they are usually tasting cement when the bouncers get to ya.
But when it comes to drug addiction or forced prostitution by pimps, then these women need to be rescued, helped and recovered and the pimps thrown in prison.
I had the unique opportunity to hear about this yesterday.
The problem is that almost all these women are victims of abuse, they’re poor, they’re exploited, they’re hooked on drugs. Topeka has a program where they’re going around TRYING to help get these women off the streets by providing them with jobs and shelter and counseling.
These women don’t hook because they WANT to, they hook because they have to eat. Who here wants to do it with some nasty grandpa?
So the police dept exploits them some more. Afterall, we know that these women are going home and hopping on the internet. Shame & humiliation is just part of their sad lives.
PS that hopping on the internet part was sarcasm, for those who can’t get it.
Can you imagine if any of these girls were the ones from Wichita who were forced into the sex trade in Oklahoma? Remember that story? Whose to say these girls aren’t from another town and forced into it here?
While visiting the site, take a look at some of the piggies who wear the uniform.
“If there were no johns, then would there be prostitutes?”
If there were no Johns, there would still be plenty of Bills, Bobs and Rons out there doing it. And if there were no Johns, we’d be really short on Politicans- you know John Kerry, John Edwards, John Kennedy ect. Also we would not be SAVED by the grace of God because there would be no John 3:16. And no Long John Silver’s fish! And we would have a really nasty place if we could not go to the john and use it when needed!
yeah right shame them into quitting
If there is nothing wrong with what they’re doing, then there is nothing wrong with posting not only pictures of hookers but of their johns as well. After all they aren’t doing anything wrong, right, and they’re on public property so they’re fair game. Maybe they’d like a little free publicity. The only bad publicity is no publicity at all according to the entertainment industry and they have nothing in common with prostitutes.
If your ashamed or embarrassed by it, don’t do it. Pretty simple.
They also ought to take pictures out side strip clubs of people going in and coming out. That would be wonderful advertisement for their services, and a wake up call for some families I would think.
While living, the park area around I15 by the downtown bridge was known as a male prostitute hangout, many of them in their early teens. One of the papers tried to post the license plate numbers of adults picking up the kids. Guess what: they were threatened with law suits, as there was a plethora of Lexus and Mercedes owners picking the kids up. Even the police refused to get involved because of the high-dollar backlash.
Some cities are publishing pictures of johns, as well as the prostitutes. That has led to a significant drop in prostitution in those cities. I say, go for it. It can’t hurt.
Should have read, while living in San Diego, . . .
Take pictures of people entering/leaving strip clubs??? And do what with them, send the pictures to their mommies? sheesh, that sounds like something from that weird-o group, southwind.
Hate to break the news to you, sean, but going to strip clubs is not illegal…
“While living, the park area around I15 by the downtown bridge was known as a male prostitute hangout, many of them in their early teens. One of the papers tried to post the license plate numbers of adults picking up the kids. Guess what: they were threatened with law suits, as there was a plethora of Lexus and Mercedes owners picking the kids up. Even the police refused to get involved because of the high-dollar backlash.”
They can threaten a lawsuit but they cannot win a lawsuit. When in public the law is that you can be recorded, observed and photographed because you have “no expectation of privacy” in a public place. You can photograph anything on a public street and do as you wish with it.
Kev,The problem is proving these adults were having sexual relations with the kids. If you can’t prove that, then publishing their names and photographs will lead to lawsuits the adults can easily win. If there is no law proven broken, but the publishing implies that, the publishers will lose.
It is true you can photograph anything you want, but legally publishing it is another matter entirely. Obviously, the rich “adults” knew that, thus the threat.
So why is the government telling consenting adults who and how they have sex? How is trading sex for cash different than, trading sex for a dinner & a movie, drinks at the bar, room and board, or for sparkling rocks.
“The problem is proving these adults were having sexual relations with the kids. If you can’t prove that, then publishing their names and photographs will lead to lawsuits the adults can easily win. If there is no law proven broken, but the publishing implies that, the publishers will lose. ”
If you say they had sex with kids you might be in trouble but if there is a place where such things happen and you say “this car was there” people can infer why they were there. People do this all the time and lawsuits have been tried and lost many times. And you can publish it yourself on the internet. Look at YouTube sometime- it is full of videos of folks making fools out of themselves in public.
Hallo, but topic starter, [b]you are sure?[/b]prof.Preobrajensky.Bye
I think it was tried back in the seventies and again in the nineties, a anti-porn church group started taking photos of the license plates of cars parked at the different porn theaters around town. It had about as much success at stopping the customers in the seventies as it did in the nineties.
Anyway, I came across one of the group that was doing the attempt to fight porn. They were going to the trouble of actually running the registration through D.M.V then sending a letter with the photo to the address shown. With the photo was a letter saying that the church would help with the person’s porn addiction. If they did not receive a call to the number shown, then the group would contact the person’s spouse and inform them of the time, date and location that the photo had been taken.
The guy I was talking with said it did not work well and he still remembered a call from a frantic woman pleading with him not to tell her husband!
Another side to this whole debate…while making my rounds to see my patients who live on South Broadway, I was talking to a landlord who has a small apartment complex at Mt Vernon and Broadway. He said that the Quik Trip has banned the prostitutes from using their bathroom, so the girls have been knocking on the doors of his tenants (most of whom are disabled) and asking to use their’s. Once the hookers get inside, they steal them blind. He said the problem has gotten a lot worse in the last year, and he’s had to run off two prostitutes this week alone who were trying to take advantage of his tenants.Like I said before, most, if not all, prostitutes are drug addicts…ripping off someone who’s retarded or mentally ill is just fair game to them. It’s really sad when those who are so vulnerable get taken advantage of like that.