NAMING NAMES IN PATERSON, AND LET THE NAMED BEWARE

In an effort to discourage people from coming to Paterson, N.J., to
buy drugs and solicit prostitutes, the Police Department has begun
buying full-page ads in local newspapers listing the names, partial
addresses and birth dates of people arrested for those crimes.

The first ads, which cost the department $2,500, appeared on
Wednesday in The Record and The Herald News and listed the names of
about 600 people arrested between July 2005 and February 2006. The
Police Department plans to buy additional ads on a quarterly basis.

Under the headline "Caveat Emptor," the ads read: "Be advised that if
you attempt to purchase drugs or sex in the City of Paterson you will
be arrested, jailed, and have your vehicle impounded. Your name will
then appear in a future newspaper ad like those listed below."

Mayor Jose Torres, who is up for re-election to a second four-year
term when voters go to the polls tomorrow, said the ads were meant to
send a message to the city's unwanted visitors. "Out-of-towners are
not going to come here to buy drugs and sex, and their family and
neighbors will not even know about it," he said.

City officials said that at least half of the 2,233 people arrested
for the offenses from July to February came from outside Paterson,
though they noted that future ads would include the names of Paterson
residents. (There was only enough space for 600 names in the first ads).

The city, a former factory town of 150,000 people about 20 miles from
Manhattan, has seen a rise in gang activity and street crime, with
guns and drugs becoming more prevalent, according to the authorities.

Other towns and cities have tried similar approaches. The police in
Chicago and in Frederick, Md., for instance, post the photos of
people arrested for soliciting prostitutes on their department Web sites.

In 2002 and 2003, the Camden County prosecutor's office bought ads in
two local newspapers, listing those arrested for trying to buy drugs
in the city of Camden. By 2004, the effort proved too costly and was
discontinued. Prosecutors there also sent postcards to the homes of
those charged with soliciting prostitutes, informing their families
of their arrests.

Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the American Civil Liberties
Union of New Jersey, objected to Paterson's advertising campaign.

"Why a city would use public resources in an attempt to humiliate
people not even convicted of a crime is beyond me," she said. "I'm
confident that this kind of punitive publicity is not a deterrent. So
again, in this country, you're innocent until proven guilty."

Courtney Guyton, an Atlanta lawyer, wrote a 1996 Vanderbilt Law
Review article entitled "Sex in the Sunlight," on the effectiveness
of publishing the names of those suspected of soliciting prostitutes.

"There is a pretty good legal argument to be made that it may be
unconstitutional, because you're punishing people without a trial or
guilty plea or conviction, if it is punitive in its intent," she
said. "If anything, it might have the effect of pushing the activity
elsewhere, outside a particular jurisdiction. In some cases that's
what lawmakers are out to do."

The mother of one person whose name was published after being
arrested in Paterson on drug charges, said it hurt families as much
as or more than those named.

"Do you think my daughter's caring? She doesn't even know her name is
in the paper. Who's being punished?" said the woman, who answered the
family's phone and identified herself as the mother but declined to
give her name.

She said that her daughter was a homeless drug addict, and that she
had found herself the subject of gossip once before when her
daughter's problems ended up in the newspaper. "We're the lowlifes?" she asked.

In Paterson, Kelvin Rodriguez, 25, who works at a grocery store on
Godwin Avenue, near several notorious drug corners, said on Thursday
that the ads had one damaging effect. "They make it seem like
Paterson is a place of shame," he said. "They're trying to say that
for people who live out of town, that's the only reason they come into town."

But Juan Reyes, 41, who works in an auto parts store in Paterson,
said: "Stuff like this should be done more often. It's a little, but it helps."