TWO BREAK LAW BUT ONLY ONE PUNISHED

The Daily Advertiser's May 6 front-page article, "Drugs drive
Lafayette sex trade," described our area's problem of prostitution as
one that is caused in large part by drug addiction and sees drug
treatment as its solution.

Your May 10 editorial, "Addiction treatment offers weapon against
prostitution," points out treatment will not eliminate the problem,
but describes this approach as an "enlightened attitude" in the
struggle to control the amount of prostitution.

That is all well and good. However, drug treatment for prostitutes
addresses only one of the law-breaking parties. While the drug-driven
crime of prostitution begins with the prostitute (i.e., a person
committing a crime for money in order to have money to pay for
committing a second crime), the other law-breaker is the man who
illegally exchanges money for sex. We arrest one of the law breakers
and ignore the other. Why?

The effort a few years ago to publish the names of the men caught
engaging in this crime lasted for only a short period of time because
the so-called "solid, upstanding citizens" who were named in public
created a furor claiming this was an invasion of their privacy.

However, not punishing the male offenders publicly has allowed them
to freely seek to break the law again ... and maybe again and again.

With today's epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases there is
tremendous danger posed to both the man and the woman having illicit,
pass-around sex. Think of the wives and any possible future sex
partners of the men who are infected by the prostitute with some
forms of STD that, in turn, is passed along to an innocent party or
parties.

Printing the names of the men who have broken the law by paying for
sex would be fair and would be another weapon in attempting to solve
the problem of prostitution.

It seems naming offenders who were caught paying for sex is just as
fair as the publishing of the names and pictures of other types of
sexual offenders when they establish residence in a community. After
all, both committed sexual crimes and no one objects to the latter.

Edward J. Hannie, DDS, FAGD

Lafayette