This is topic The Violator in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 07-25-2002, 03:40 PM:
Rules are for other people! 
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-25-2002, 04:15 PM:
SEE! Ian IS a violator. 
Moving to Yak.
Posted by Kat Baggett (Member # 1154) on 07-25-2002, 05:29 PM:
Boring day in Santa Rosa or what??kat
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-25-2002, 07:13 PM:
Surely there has been a movie made called "The Violater". I wonder how ling the running time was?
Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 07-25-2002, 08:24 PM:
The ling was lang because to long was lurt! 
Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 4594) on 07-26-2002, 12:59 AM:
CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER 
CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER CHIPPER I WANT ATTENTION!!!!! 
Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 07-26-2002, 01:39 AM:
Wow that really made you stand out from the crowd.Wanna catch a movie with me?
Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 07-26-2002, 10:58 AM:
Once upon a time, -i think it was on Joe Redifers birthday - a nice little readheaded chipmunk was chipping around the projection booth floor, when suddenly a platter aborted (the film was slippery after a much too generous apply of some cleaning fluid) right down onto the chipto be continued - by Bob, maybe...
Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 07-27-2002, 02:09 PM:
mini-me loves chocolate.
scottydont.stitch says nobody gets left behind or forgotten. MEEGA NALACRISTA ISHA TOOSH MISHTA! Igh.
There's a WILD FANDANGO LOOSE IN THE THEATRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 07-28-2002, 02:58 AM:
Shizzle My Nizzle Homie G, S to the E A N
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 07-30-2002, 07:02 PM:
This is not a random quote.
Posted by John Westlund (Member # 913) on 07-30-2002, 07:33 PM:
This IS a random quote.
Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 07-30-2002, 11:59 PM:
*borrows a word from a SW fan on some other MB system*
SPART!
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-31-2002, 02:01 AM:
The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods. Making it less profitable for the sellers and mroe risky for the buyers should therefore have some usefull effect. The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods. Making it less profitable for the sellers and more risky for the buyers should therefore have some usefull effect. The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods. Making it less profitable for the sellers and mroe risky for the buyers should therefore have some usefull effect. The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods. Making it less profitable for the sellers and mroe risky for the buyers should therefore have some useful effect. The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods. Making it less profitable for the sellers and mroe risky for the buyers should therefore have some useful effect. The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods. Making it less profitable for the sellers and mroe risky for the buyers should therefore have some useful effect. The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods. Making it less profitable for the sellers and mroe risky for the buyers should therefore have some useful effect. The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods. Making it less profitable for the sellers and mroe risky for the buyers should therefore have some useful effect. The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods. Making it less profitable for the sellers and mroe risky for the buyers should therefore have some useful effect. The claim that Denver is becoming really tough on prostitution, what with its new and seemingly popular Johns TV, is difficult to sustain when officials at the city jail have to release convicted prostitutes early to make room for more. Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up. The rules for early release say that the inmates have to serve at least half of their sentences, and have fewer than ten days remaining to serve. But that's not much of a limitation for offenses that often carry very short sentences anyway. Of the 233 jail inmates released early so far this year, 17 were women charged with prostitution (in a few cases, along with other offenses). Roughly half of them had sentences of only 10 days. If they've already been in jail a couple of days when they are sentenced, cutting even two or three days from the end of the sentence is a substantial reduction - not only in jail time but also in lost work time. It risks giving the offenders the message that (wink, wink) Denver's not serious about this. Or perhaps only half serious, since prostitutes' customers are in fact being punished, or at least humiliated, as never before. It's understandable that the jail is overcrowded, and that crowding for the women's section is worse than for men. But that's the point. Prostitution is a nuisance crime, one that damages the quality of life in the neighborhoods where it is prevelant. If the crowding is so severe that every new batch of prostitutes arrested and taken off the street forces an equal number to be released, that does essentially nothing to improve the neighborhood's situation. Yet choosing to release other inmates instead isn't an easy decision either. The only two offenses more common in the list are driving without a valid license and driving under the influence. The second of those is at least as serious as prostitution because because of the potential victims of drunken drivers. And if someone who would normally be in jail gets out early, and kills someone while driving drunk, the city could be sued. But if the city's attack on the supply side of the prostitution problem is running into difficulty because of the limited number of jail cells, it is vigorously tackling the demand side through the Johns TV. As of last Thursday, the city is posting the names and photos of prostitutes' customers on its web site and broadcasting them on its cable channel, Channel 8. Compared with other jurisdictions, Denver's going easy - at least at first. Unlike other cities, including Aurora, that post names and pictures of those arrested, Denver will limit its public exposure to those who have actually been convicted. Of course that makes explaining themselves even more difficult for the unwilling stars of Johns TV. The first program featured men convicted starting July 3. As long as both willing sellers and willing buyers exist, prostitution won't be erradicated. The trick is to prevent it from blighting neighborhoods, making it less profitable for the sellers and more risky for the buyers.
Posted by John Westlund (Member # 913) on 07-31-2002, 02:17 AM:
I think thats the longest post ive ever seen.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-31-2002, 03:11 AM:
Joe, I disagree. Denver's new policy of publishing the pictures of convicted prostitutes and their clients on the government-access cable TV Channel 8 may succeed in shaming some of the customers but seems more like free advertising for the hookers themselves. That's only one of several misgivings we have about Mayor Wellington Webb's new offensive against street prostitution. We also challenge the city's policy of refusing plea bargains on prostitution-related charges - at a time when Denver has already given 191 inmates early releases from the city jail because of overcrowding. We don't buy the argument that prostitution is a "victimless crime." But in most cases the real victim is the prostitute herself and the real criminal is the pimp who exploits and brutalizes her. Instead of targeting the pimps, the city is settling for busting the prostitute/ victims themselves. Street prostitutes are often from out of state and merely work Denver as part of their circuit. We very much doubt that many will be "shamed" out of the business by having their pictures broadcast on Channel 8. In contrast, publishing pictures of people convicted of patronizing prostitutes could have some deterrent effect on men who may not want their wives and neighbors to know the details of their leisure- time activities. And while The Post has traditionally opposed such extrajudicial punishment, Webb has at least decided to limit such publishing to persons actually convicted of the offense. Aurora, by contrast, routinely publishes the pictures of men accused of patronizing prostitutes - without waiting for that trifling afterthought called a "fair trial." Finally, the "no-plea-bargains-in-cases-of-prostitution" rule reflects a bizarre sense of priorities in city hall. Denver's overburdened courts and prosecutors routinely cut plea bargains in cases of murder, armed robbery, drugs, gambling and practically every other crime known to man. Is prostitution really the one offense so heinous that the city is willing to commit an unlimited amount of legal resources to harass hookers and their customers while violent criminals see their mayhem bargained down to lesser charges? Webb should rethink this misguided decision. Business owners and police are claiming victory in a troubled southwest Houston neighborhood, where the News2Houston Investigators uncovered a massive prostitution problem. Now, there is word of a new round of arrests on Hillcroft, but this time police are trying a new tactic. Businesses told News2Houston that they have noticed how things have changed since our first report on the prostitution problem. The main reason for the change is the intense police crackdown, first on the hookers and pimps, and then on those who pay for them. Police cars move in from nowhere, then the handcuffs go on. Another prostitution customer, or "John," is headed to jail. In the latest sting, undercover officers stroll the area where huge groups of prostitutes were available just a month ago. Once the man offers money for sex, the woman points to a nearby motel where they will meet. Then, the officers signal their arrest team over the radio. Police then signal a "case made," which means the "John" crossed the line, breaking the law, agreeing to pay for sex. They arrest the customer and then an officer jumps in his car in a hurry to clear the way for the next decoy. Capt. David Cutler of the HPD Vice Squad: "When you have to go home and explain to your wife or significant other, this is why I was arrested, it'll be an embarrassing moment." While on the sting, News2Houston Investigators saw a man who motioned behind him, warning the woman that he just saw police cars and to be careful. Other potential customers mentioned that they had seen the patrol cars but they were arrested anyway. Prostitution suspect/58-year-old married man: "You're messin' up my business, messing up my life. What am I gonna tell my wife, I'm soliciting?" Police said that the suspect wanted one particular sex act and offered $10 to the decoy. Police said that the women have left town since our initial report, but they're having no trouble in finding the "Johns" to just keep on making arrests." Another "John" was worried about his wife and kids as well, but he was also worried about cost. Police said that the 38-year-old man first offered $30 for a sex act, but then he tried to bargain the woman down to $20. He had $80 wadded up in his front pocket. Prostitution suspect: "I didn't do anything." At a nearby glass business, the crackdown means their entire neighborhood's problems are out the door like a broken windshield. Bob Hadi/Affordable Glass owner: "It's just great. I'm shocked. You got rid of all of 'em. I haven't seen nothin' since that program aired. Haven't seen nothing. This is great." Syed Ali/owner of Shahnai Restaurant: "It's just changed tremendously since there is no activity, and we're having pretty good clientele here and I hope it stays that way." Capt. Cutler, HPD Vice: "If they come back to town, maybe it's next year or the year after, and we'll just do the same thing we've been doing." Now, other police departments need to know those tricks because the out-of-state hookers are showing up in their cities. A memo from the Denver Police Department asks the Houston Police Department for any details because of a similar prostitution problem that is starting to appear there. HPD said that it will forward some trick that should keep the organizations on the move. Police said that they've made more than 200 prostitution arrests on Hillcroft since the problems started there. The vice squad also said that 34 men accused of trying to buy sex have also been arrested. Police said that more stings may be planned on Hillcroft in the coming weeks. Denver's new policy of publishing the pictures of convicted prostitutes and their clients on the government-access cable TV Channel 8 may succeed in shaming some of the customers but seems more like free advertising for the hookers themselves. That's only one of several misgivings we have about Mayor Wellington Webb's new offensive against street prostitution. We also challenge the city's policy of refusing plea bargains on prostitution-related charges - at a time when Denver has already given 191 inmates early releases from the city jail because of overcrowding. We don't buy the argument that prostitution is a "victimless crime." But in most cases the real victim is the prostitute herself and the real criminal is the pimp who exploits and brutalizes her. Instead of targeting the pimps, the city is settling for busting the prostitute/ victims themselves. Street prostitutes are often from out of state and merely work Denver as part of their circuit. We very much doubt that many will be "shamed" out of the business by having their pictures broadcast on Channel 8. In contrast, publishing pictures of people convicted of patronizing prostitutes could have some deterrent effect on men who may not want their wives and neighbors to know the details of their leisure- time activities. And while The Post has traditionally opposed such extrajudicial punishment, Webb has at least decided to limit such publishing to persons actually convicted of the offense. Aurora, by contrast, routinely publishes the pictures of men accused of patronizing prostitutes - without waiting for that trifling afterthought called a "fair trial." Finally, the "no-plea-bargains-in-cases-of-prostitution" rule reflects a bizarre sense of priorities in city hall. Denver's overburdened courts and prosecutors routinely cut plea bargains in cases of murder, armed robbery, drugs, gambling and practically every other crime known to man. Is prostitution really the one offense so heinous that the city is willing to commit an unlimited amount of legal resources to harass hookers and their customers while violent criminals see their mayhem bargained down to lesser charges? Webb should rethink this misguided decision. Business owners and police are claiming victory in a troubled southwest Houston neighborhood, where the News2Houston Investigators uncovered a massive prostitution problem. Now, there is word of a new round of arrests on Hillcroft, but this time police are trying a new tactic. Businesses told News2Houston that they have noticed how things have changed since our first report on the prostitution problem. The main reason for the change is the intense police crackdown, first on the hookers and pimps, and then on those who pay for them. Police cars move in from nowhere, then the handcuffs go on. Another prostitution customer, or "John," is headed to jail. In the latest sting, undercover officers stroll the area where huge groups of prostitutes were available just a month ago. Once the man offers money for sex, the woman points to a nearby motel where they will meet. Then, the officers signal their arrest team over the radio. Police then signal a "case made," which means the "John" crossed the line, breaking the law, agreeing to pay for sex. They arrest the customer and then an officer jumps in his car in a hurry to clear the way for the next decoy. Capt. David Cutler of the HPD Vice Squad: "When you have to go home and explain to your wife or significant other, this is why I was arrested, it'll be an embarrassing moment." While on the sting, News2Houston Investigators saw a man who motioned behind him, warning the woman that he just saw police cars and to be careful. Other potential customers mentioned that they had seen the patrol cars but they were arrested anyway. Prostitution suspect/58-year-old married man: "You're messin' up my business, messing up my life. What am I gonna tell my wife, I'm soliciting?" Police said that the suspect wanted one particular sex act and offered $10 to the decoy. Police said that the women have left town since our initial report, but they're having no trouble in finding the "Johns" to just keep on making arrests." Another "John" was worried about his wife and kids as well, but he was also worried about cost. Police said that the 38-year-old man first offered $30 for a sex act, but then he tried to bargain the woman down to $20. He had $80 wadded up in his front pocket. Prostitution suspect: "I didn't do anything." At a nearby glass business, the crackdown means their entire neighborhood's problems are out the door like a broken windshield. Bob Hadi/Affordable Glass owner: "It's just great. I'm shocked. You got rid of all of 'em. I haven't seen nothin' since that program aired. Haven't seen nothing. This is great." Syed Ali/owner of Shahnai Restaurant: "It's just changed tremendously since there is no activity, and we're having pretty good clientele here and I hope it stays that way." Capt. Cutler, HPD Vice: "If they come back to town, maybe it's next year or the year after, and we'll just do the same thing we've been doing." Now, other police departments need to know those tricks because the out-of-state hookers are showing up in their cities. A memo from the Denver Police Department asks the Houston Police Department for any details because of a similar prostitution problem that is starting to appear there. HPD said that it will forward some trick that should keep the organizations on the move. Police said that they've made more than 200 prostitution arrests on Hillcroft since the problems started there. The vice squad also said that 34 men accused of trying to buy sex have also been arrested. Police said that more stings may be planned on Hillcroft in the coming weeks. Denver's new policy of publishing the pictures of convicted prostitutes and their clients on the government-access cable TV Channel 8 may succeed in shaming some of the customers but seems more like free advertising for the hookers themselves. That's only one of several misgivings we have about Mayor Wellington Webb's new offensive against street prostitution. We also challenge the city's policy of refusing plea bargains on prostitution-related charges - at a time when Denver has already given 191 inmates early releases from the city jail because of overcrowding. We don't buy the argument that prostitution is a "victimless crime." But in most cases the real victim is the prostitute herself and the real criminal is the pimp who exploits and brutalizes her. Instead of targeting the pimps, the city is settling for busting the prostitute/ victims themselves. Street prostitutes are often from out of state and merely work Denver as part of their circuit. We very much doubt that many will be "shamed" out of the business by having their pictures broadcast on Channel 8. In contrast, publishing pictures of people convicted of patronizing prostitutes could have some deterrent effect on men who may not want their wives and neighbors to know the details of their leisure- time activities. And while The Post has traditionally opposed such extrajudicial punishment, Webb has at least decided to limit such publishing to persons actually convicted of the offense. Aurora, by contrast, routinely publishes the pictures of men accused of patronizing prostitutes - without waiting for that trifling afterthought called a "fair trial." Finally, the "no-plea-bargains-in-cases-of-prostitution" rule reflects a bizarre sense of priorities in city hall. Denver's overburdened courts and prosecutors routinely cut plea bargains in cases of murder, armed robbery, drugs, gambling and practically every other crime known to man. Is prostitution really the one offense so heinous that the city is willing to commit an unlimited amount of legal resources to harass hookers and their customers while violent criminals see their mayhem bargained down to lesser charges? Webb should rethink this misguided decision. Business owners and police are claiming victory in a troubled southwest Houston neighborhood, where the News2Houston Investigators uncovered a massive prostitution problem. Now, there is word of a new round of arrests on Hillcroft, but this time police are trying a new tactic. Businesses told News2Houston that they have noticed how things have changed since our first report on the prostitution problem. The main reason for the change is the intense police crackdown, first on the hookers and pimps, and then on those who pay for them. Police cars move in from nowhere, then the handcuffs go on. Another prostitution customer, or "John," is headed to jail. In the latest sting, undercover officers stroll the area where huge groups of prostitutes were available just a month ago. Once the man offers money for sex, the woman points to a nearby motel where they will meet. Then, the officers signal their arrest team over the radio. Police then signal a "case made," which means the "John" crossed the line, breaking the law, agreeing to pay for sex. They arrest the customer and then an officer jumps in his car in a hurry to clear the way for the next decoy. Capt. David Cutler of the HPD Vice Squad: "When you have to go home and explain to your wife or significant other, this is why I was arrested, it'll be an embarrassing moment." While on the sting, News2Houston Investigators saw a man who motioned behind him, warning the woman that he just saw police cars and to be careful. Other potential customers mentioned that they had seen the patrol cars but they were arrested anyway. Prostitution suspect/58-year-old married man: "You're messin' up my business, messing up my life. What am I gonna tell my wife, I'm soliciting?" Police said that the suspect wanted one particular sex act and offered $10 to the decoy. Police said that the women have left town since our initial report, but they're having no trouble in finding the "Johns" to just keep on making arrests." Another "John" was worried about his wife and kids as well, but he was also worried about cost. Police said that the 38-year-old man first offered $30 for a sex act, but then he tried to bargain the woman down to $20. He had $80 wadded up in his front pocket. Prostitution suspect: "I didn't do anything." At a nearby glass business, the crackdown means their entire neighborhood's problems are out the door like a broken windshield. Bob Hadi/Affordable Glass owner: "It's just great. I'm shocked. You got rid of all of 'em. I haven't seen nothin' since that program aired. Haven't seen nothing. This is great." Syed Ali/owner of Shahnai Restaurant: "It's just changed tremendously since there is no activity, and we're having pretty good clientele here and I hope it stays that way." Capt. Cutler, HPD Vice: "If they come back to town, maybe it's next year or the year after, and we'll just do the same thing we've been doing." Now, other police departments need to know those tricks because the out-of-state hookers are showing up in their cities. A memo from the Denver Police Department asks the Houston Police Department for any details because of a similar prostitution problem that is starting to appear there. HPD said that it will forward some trick that should keep the organizations on the move. Police said that they've made more than 200 prostitution arrests on Hillcroft since the problems started there. The vice squad also said that 34 men accused of trying to buy sex have also been arrested. Police said that more stings may be planned on Hillcroft in the coming weeks. Denver's new policy of publishing the pictures of convicted prostitutes and their clients on the government-access cable TV Channel 8 may succeed in shaming some of the customers but seems more like free advertising for the hookers themselves. That's only one of several misgivings we have about Mayor Wellington Webb's new offensive against street prostitution. We also challenge the city's policy of refusing plea bargains on prostitution-related charges - at a time when Denver has already given 191 inmates early releases from the city jail because of overcrowding. We don't buy the argument that prostitution is a "victimless crime." But in most cases the real victim is the prostitute herself and the real criminal is the pimp who exploits and brutalizes her. Instead of targeting the pimps, the city is settling for busting the prostitute/ victims themselves. Street prostitutes are often from out of state and merely work Denver as part of their circuit. We very much doubt that many will be "shamed" out of the business by having their pictures broadcast on Channel 8. In contrast, publishing pictures of people convicted of patronizing prostitutes could have some deterrent effect on men who may not want their wives and neighbors to know the details of their leisure- time activities. And while The Post has traditionally opposed such extrajudicial punishment, Webb has at least decided to limit such publishing to persons actually convicted of the offense. Aurora, by contrast, routinely publishes the pictures of men accused of patronizing prostitutes - without waiting for that trifling afterthought called a "fair trial." Finally, the "no-plea-bargains-in-cases-of-prostitution" rule reflects a bizarre sense of priorities in city hall. Denver's overburdened courts and prosecutors routinely cut plea bargains in cases of murder, armed robbery, drugs, gambling and practically every other crime known to man. Is prostitution really the one offense so heinous that the city is willing to commit an unlimited amount of legal resources to harass hookers and their customers while violent criminals see their mayhem bargained down to lesser charges? Webb should rethink this misguided decision. Business owners and police are claiming victory in a troubled southwest Houston neighborhood, where the News2Houston Investigators uncovered a massive prostitution problem. Now, there is word of a new round of arrests on Hillcroft, but this time police are trying a new tactic. Businesses told News2Houston that they have noticed how things have changed since our first report on the prostitution problem. The main reason for the change is the intense police crackdown, first on the hookers and pimps, and then on those who pay for them. Police cars move in from nowhere, then the handcuffs go on. Another prostitution customer, or "John," is headed to jail. In the latest sting, undercover officers stroll the area where huge groups of prostitutes were available just a month ago. Once the man offers money for sex, the woman points to a nearby motel where they will meet. Then, the officers signal their arrest team over the radio. Police then signal a "case made," which means the "John" crossed the line, breaking the law, agreeing to pay for sex. They arrest the customer and then an officer jumps in his car in a hurry to clear the way for the next decoy. Capt. David Cutler of the HPD Vice Squad: "When you have to go home and explain to your wife or significant other, this is why I was arrested, it'll be an embarrassing moment." While on the sting, News2Houston Investigators saw a man who motioned behind him, warning the woman that he just saw police cars and to be careful. Other potential customers mentioned that they had seen the patrol cars but they were arrested anyway. Prostitution suspect/58-year-old married man: "You're messin' up my business, messing up my life. What am I gonna tell my wife, I'm soliciting?" Police said that the suspect wanted one particular sex act and offered $10 to the decoy. Police said that the women have left town since our initial report, but they're having no trouble in finding the "Johns" to just keep on making arrests." Another "John" was worried about his wife and kids as well, but he was also worried about cost. Police said that the 38-year-old man first offered $30 for a sex act, but then he tried to bargain the woman down to $20. He had $80 wadded up in his front pocket. Prostitution suspect: "I didn't do anything." At a nearby glass business, the crackdown means their entire neighborhood's problems are out the door like a broken windshield. Bob Hadi/Affordable Glass owner: "It's just great. I'm shocked. You got rid of all of 'em. I haven't seen nothin' since that program aired. Haven't seen nothing. This is great." Syed Ali/owner of Shahnai Restaurant: "It's just changed tremendously since there is no activity, and we're having pretty good clientele here and I hope it stays that way." Capt. Cutler, HPD Vice: "If they come back to town, maybe it's next year or the year after, and we'll just do the same thing we've been doing." Now, other police departments need to know those tricks because the out-of-state hookers are showing up in their cities. A memo from the Denver Police Department asks the Houston Police Department for any details because of a similar prostitution problem that is starting to appear there. HPD said that it will forward some trick that should keep the organizations on the move. Police said that they've made more than 200 prostitution arrests on Hillcroft since the problems started there. The vice squad also said that 34 men accused of trying to buy sex have also been arrested. Police said that more stings may be planned on Hillcroft in the coming weeks. Denver's new policy of publishing the pictures of convicted prostitutes and their clients on the government-access cable TV Channel 8 may succeed in shaming some of the customers but seems more like free advertising for the hookers themselves. That's only one of several misgivings we have about Mayor Wellington Webb's new offensive against street prostitution. We also challenge the city's policy of refusing plea bargains on prostitution-related charges - at a time when Denver has already given 191 inmates early releases from the city jail because of overcrowding. We don't buy the argument that prostitution is a "victimless crime." But in most cases the real victim is the prostitute herself and the real criminal is the pimp who exploits and brutalizes her. Instead of targeting the pimps, the city is settling for busting the prostitute/ victims themselves. Street prostitutes are often from out of state and merely work Denver as part of their circuit. We very much doubt that many will be "shamed" out of the business by having their pictures broadcast on Channel 8. In contrast, publishing pictures of people convicted of patronizing prostitutes could have some deterrent effect on men who may not want their wives and neighbors to know the details of their leisure- time activities. And while The Post has traditionally opposed such extrajudicial punishment, Webb has at least decided to limit such publishing to persons actually convicted of the offense. Aurora, by contrast, routinely publishes the pictures of men accused of patronizing prostitutes - without waiting for that trifling afterthought called a "fair trial." Finally, the "no-plea-bargains-in-cases-of-prostitution" rule reflects a bizarre sense of priorities in city hall. Denver's overburdened courts and prosecutors routinely cut plea bargains in cases of murder, armed robbery, drugs, gambling and practically every other crime known to man. Is prostitution really the one offense so heinous that the city is willing to commit an unlimited amount of legal resources to harass hookers and their customers while violent criminals see their mayhem bargained down to lesser charges? Webb should rethink this misguided decision. Business owners and police are claiming victory in a troubled southwest Houston neighborhood, where the News2Houston Investigators uncovered a massive prostitution problem. Now, there is word of a new round of arrests on Hillcroft, but this time police are trying a new tactic. Businesses told News2Houston that they have noticed how things have changed since our first report on the prostitution problem. The main reason for the change is the intense police crackdown, first on the hookers and pimps, and then on those who pay for them. Police cars move in from nowhere, then the handcuffs go on. Another prostitution customer, or "John," is headed to jail. In the latest sting, undercover officers stroll the area where huge groups of prostitutes were available just a month ago. Once the man offers money for sex, the woman points to a nearby motel where they will meet. Then, the officers signal their arrest team over the radio. Police then signal a "case made," which means the "John" crossed the line, breaking the law, agreeing to pay for sex. They arrest the customer and then an officer jumps in his car in a hurry to clear the way for the next decoy. Capt. David Cutler of the HPD Vice Squad: "When you have to go home and explain to your wife or significant other, this is why I was arrested, it'll be an embarrassing moment." While on the sting, News2Houston Investigators saw a man who motioned behind him, warning the woman that he just saw police cars and to be careful. Other potential customers mentioned that they had seen the patrol cars but they were arrested anyway. Prostitution suspect/58-year-old married man: "You're messin' up my business, messing up my life. What am I gonna tell my wife, I'm soliciting?" Police said that the suspect wanted one particular sex act and offered $10 to the decoy. Police said that the women have left town since our initial report, but they're having no trouble in finding the "Johns" to just keep on making arrests." Another "John" was worried about his wife and kids as well, but he was also worried about cost. Police said that the 38-year-old man first offered $30 for a sex act, but then he tried to bargain the woman down to $20. He had $80 wadded up in his front pocket. Prostitution suspect: "I didn't do anything." At a nearby glass business, the crackdown means their entire neighborhood's problems are out the door like a broken windshield. Bob Hadi/Affordable Glass owner: "It's just great. I'm shocked. You got rid of all of 'em. I haven't seen nothin' since that program aired. Haven't seen nothing. This is great." Syed Ali/owner of Shahnai Restaurant: "It's just changed tremendously since there is no activity, and we're having pretty good clientele here and I hope it stays that way." Capt. Cutler, HPD Vice: "If they come back to town, maybe it's next year or the year after, and we'll just do the same thing we've been doing." Now, other police departments need to know those tricks because the out-of-state hookers are showing up in their cities. A memo from the Denver Police Department asks the Houston Police Department for any details because of a similar prostitution problem that is starting to appear there. HPD said that it will forward some trick that should keep the organizations on the move. Police said that they've made more than 200 prostitution arrests on Hillcroft since the problems started there. The vice squad also said that 34 men accused of trying to buy sex have also been arrested. Police said that more stings may be planned on Hillcroft in the coming weeks.
Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 07-31-2002, 03:41 AM:
Knock Knock - Who's there? Nothin'.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-31-2002, 03:46 AM:
Brad- Your point is fairly well made, but you have forgotten to take into consideration the obvious effects prostitution has on its blighted neighborhoods. There are a few things you need to understand. While Mayor Wellington Webb pushes a public commitment to rid Denver of prostitution, those convicted of the crime often get an early ticket out of jail, an analysis of mine has found. Local activists worry that these beneficiaries of the overcrowded city-county jail's early-release program will just return to the neighborhood street corners where police arrested them, setting in motion a continuing cycle of crime and partial punishment. My analysis focused on all jail inmates granted early release this year. It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue. This year alone there have been eight groups of inmates released early. Oliva said while there is no specific jail population number that triggers an early release, he tries to maintain a "safe environment" for his guards to work in. "Releasing prostitutes is a problem," Oliva said. "But it's something that has to be done." The jail building where all female inmates are housed was designed to hold 120 people, but Oliva said at times the number is more than double that. "We have 250 people in there at a time," he said. "And the place is loaded up everywhere else with men." To make room, some of the female inmates have been sent to other county jails, costing local taxpayers $50.39 a day for each to be housed elsewhere. "It's the females stressing the jail," Oliva said. "When the police do their stings they are bringing in the population most affected (by overcrowding). That's why prostitutes have to be considered for early release." In his State of the City address, Webb highlighted the importance of pushing prostitution off East Colfax Avenue and out of the city with increased policing and weekly stings. In the first six months of the year the department's vice squad arrested 217 prostitutes, said Sgt. Mark Fleecs. But the arrests mean little once the word gets out that convicted hookers won't be spending much time in jail. "That's one of the things that has contributed so much in the past to recidivism," Fleecs said. "It's frustrating." Fleecs said that for the stings and increased patrols to have an impact they need to be backed by the rest of the criminal justice system. "That's really the bottom line," he said, "The jail is sort of the conclusion to all of the steps, and if there is no room there, then all of the steps that got a prostitute in jail are wasted." Christine Romano, executive director of the Beacon Club neighborhood policing office, also wants to see convicted prostitutes serve their time. To allow them early release weakens the city's message, she said. "This is really a ridiculous waste of police efforts and taxpayer dollars when we have this outcome," she said. "If there is no real punishment or threat of long-term punishment then the problem will continue as it has." While Mayor Wellington Webb pushes a public commitment to rid Denver of prostitution, those convicted of the crime often get an early ticket out of jail, an analysis of mine has found. Local activists worry that these beneficiaries of the overcrowded city-county jail's early-release program will just return to the neighborhood street corners where police arrested them, setting in motion a continuing cycle of crime and partial punishment. My analysis focused on all jail inmates granted early release this year. It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue. This year alone there have been eight groups of inmates released early. Oliva said while there is no specific jail population number that triggers an early release, he tries to maintain a "safe environment" for his guards to work in. "Releasing prostitutes is a problem," Oliva said. "But it's something that has to be done." The jail building where all female inmates are housed was designed to hold 120 people, but Oliva said at times the number is more than double that. "We have 250 people in there at a time," he said. "And the place is loaded up everywhere else with men." To make room, some of the female inmates have been sent to other county jails, costing local taxpayers $50.39 a day for each to be housed elsewhere. "It's the females stressing the jail," Oliva said. "When the police do their stings they are bringing in the population most affected (by overcrowding). That's why prostitutes have to be considered for early release." In his State of the City address, Webb highlighted the importance of pushing prostitution off East Colfax Avenue and out of the city with increased policing and weekly stings. In the first six months of the year the department's vice squad arrested 217 prostitutes, said Sgt. Mark Fleecs. But the arrests mean little once the word gets out that convicted hookers won't be spending much time in jail. "That's one of the things that has contributed so much in the past to recidivism," Fleecs said. "It's frustrating." Fleecs said that for the stings and increased patrols to have an impact they need to be backed by the rest of the criminal justice system. "That's really the bottom line," he said, "The jail is sort of the conclusion to all of the steps, and if there is no room there, then all of the steps that got a prostitute in jail are wasted." Christine Romano, executive director of the Beacon Club neighborhood policing office, also wants to see convicted prostitutes serve their time. To allow them early release weakens the city's message, she said. "This is really a ridiculous waste of police efforts and taxpayer dollars when we have this outcome," she said. "If there is no real punishment or threat of long-term punishment then the problem will continue as it has." While Mayor Wellington Webb pushes a public commitment to rid Denver of prostitution, those convicted of the crime often get an early ticket out of jail, a Rocky Mountain News analysis has found. Local activists worry that these beneficiaries of the overcrowded city-county jail's early-release program will just return to the neighborhood street corners where police arrested them, setting in motion a continuing cycle of crime and partial punishment. The News' analysis focused on all jail inmates granted early release this year. It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue. This year alone there have been eight groups of inmates released early. Oliva said while there is no specific jail population number that triggers an early release, he tries to maintain a "safe environment" for his guards to work in. "Releasing prostitutes is a problem," Oliva said. "But it's something that has to be done." The jail building where all female inmates are housed was designed to hold 120 people, but Oliva said at times the number is more than double that. "We have 250 people in there at a time," he said. "And the place is loaded up everywhere else with men." To make room, some of the female inmates have been sent to other county jails, costing local taxpayers $50.39 a day for each to be housed elsewhere. "It's the females stressing the jail," Oliva said. "When the police do their stings they are bringing in the population most affected (by overcrowding). That's why prostitutes have to be considered for early release." In his State of the City address, Webb highlighted the importance of pushing prostitution off East Colfax Avenue and out of the city with increased policing and weekly stings. In the first six months of the year the department's vice squad arrested 217 prostitutes, said Sgt. Mark Fleecs. But the arrests mean little once the word gets out that convicted hookers won't be spending much time in jail. "That's one of the things that has contributed so much in the past to recidivism," Fleecs said. "It's frustrating." Fleecs said that for the stings and increased patrols to have an impact they need to be backed by the rest of the criminal justice system. "That's really the bottom line," he said, "The jail is sort of the conclusion to all of the steps, and if there is no room there, then all of the steps that got a prostitute in jail are wasted." Christine Romano, executive director of the Beacon Club neighborhood policing office, also wants to see convicted prostitutes serve their time. To allow them early release weakens the city's message, she said. "This is really a ridiculous waste of police efforts and taxpayer dollars when we have this outcome," she said. "If there is no real punishment or threat of long-term punishment then the problem will continue as it has." While Mayor Wellington Webb pushes a public commitment to rid Denver of prostitution, those convicted of the crime often get an early ticket out of jail, a Rocky Mountain News analysis has found. Local activists worry that these beneficiaries of the overcrowded city-county jail's early-release program will just return to the neighborhood street corners where police arrested them, setting in motion a continuing cycle of crime and partial punishment. The News' analysis focused on all jail inmates granted early release this year. It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue. This year alone there have been eight groups of inmates released early. Oliva said while there is no specific jail population number that triggers an early release, he tries to maintain a "safe environment" for his guards to work in. "Releasing prostitutes is a problem," Oliva said. "But it's something that has to be done." The jail building where all female inmates are housed was designed to hold 120 people, but Oliva said at times the number is more than double that. "We have 250 people in there at a time," he said. "And the place is loaded up everywhere else with men." To make room, some of the female inmates have been sent to other county jails, costing local taxpayers $50.39 a day for each to be housed elsewhere. "It's the females stressing the jail," Oliva said. "When the police do their stings they are bringing in the population most affected (by overcrowding). That's why prostitutes have to be considered for early release." In his State of the City address, Webb highlighted the importance of pushing prostitution off East Colfax Avenue and out of the city with increased policing and weekly stings. In the first six months of the year the department's vice squad arrested 217 prostitutes, said Sgt. Mark Fleecs. But the arrests mean little once the word gets out that convicted hookers won't be spending much time in jail. "That's one of the things that has contributed so much in the past to recidivism," Fleecs said. "It's frustrating." Fleecs said that for the stings and increased patrols to have an impact they need to be backed by the rest of the criminal justice system. "That's really the bottom line," he said, "The jail is sort of the conclusion to all of the steps, and if there is no room there, then all of the steps that got a prostitute in jail are wasted." Christine Romano, executive director of the Beacon Club neighborhood policing office, also wants to see convicted prostitutes serve their time. To allow them early release weakens the city's message, she said. "This is really a ridiculous waste of police efforts and taxpayer dollars when we have this outcome," she said. "If there is no real punishment or threat of long-term punishment then the problem will continue as it has." While Mayor Wellington Webb pushes a public commitment to rid Denver of prostitution, those convicted of the crime often get an early ticket out of jail, a Rocky Mountain News analysis has found. Local activists worry that these beneficiaries of the overcrowded city-county jail's early-release program will just return to the neighborhood street corners where police arrested them, setting in motion a continuing cycle of crime and partial punishment. The News' analysis focused on all jail inmates granted early release this year. It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue. This year alone there have been eight groups of inmates released early. Oliva said while there is no specific jail population number that triggers an early release, he tries to maintain a "safe environment" for his guards to work in. "Releasing prostitutes is a problem," Oliva said. "But it's something that has to be done." The jail building where all female inmates are housed was designed to hold 120 people, but Oliva said at times the number is more than double that. "We have 250 people in there at a time," he said. "And the place is loaded up everywhere else with men." To make room, some of the female inmates have been sent to other county jails, costing local taxpayers $50.39 a day for each to be housed elsewhere. "It's the females stressing the jail," Oliva said. "When the police do their stings they are bringing in the population most affected (by overcrowding). That's why prostitutes have to be considered for early release." In his State of the City address, Webb highlighted the importance of pushing prostitution off East Colfax Avenue and out of the city with increased policing and weekly stings. In the first six months of the year the department's vice squad arrested 217 prostitutes, said Sgt. Mark Fleecs. But the arrests mean little once the word gets out that convicted hookers won't be spending much time in jail. "That's one of the things that has contributed so much in the past to recidivism," Fleecs said. "It's frustrating." Fleecs said that for the stings and increased patrols to have an impact they need to be backed by the rest of the criminal justice system. "That's really the bottom line," he said, "The jail is sort of the conclusion to all of the steps, and if there is no room there, then all of the steps that got a prostitute in jail are wasted." Christine Romano, executive director of the Beacon Club neighborhood policing office, also wants to see convicted prostitutes serve their time. To allow them early release weakens the city's message, she said. "This is really a ridiculous waste of police efforts and taxpayer dollars when we have this outcome," she said. "If there is no real punishment or threat of long-term punishment then the problem will continue as it has." While Mayor Wellington Webb pushes a public commitment to rid Denver of prostitution, those convicted of the crime often get an early ticket out of jail, a Rocky Mountain News analysis has found. Local activists worry that these beneficiaries of the overcrowded city-county jail's early-release program will just return to the neighborhood street corners where police arrested them, setting in motion a continuing cycle of crime and partial punishment. The News' analysis focused on all jail inmates granted early release this year. It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue. This year alone there have been eight groups of inmates released early. Oliva said while there is no specific jail population number that triggers an early release, he tries to maintain a "safe environment" for his guards to work in. "Releasing prostitutes is a problem," Oliva said. "But it's something that has to be done." The jail building where all female inmates are housed was designed to hold 120 people, but Oliva said at times the number is more than double that. "We have 250 people in there at a time," he said. "And the place is loaded up everywhere else with men." To make room, some of the female inmates have been sent to other county jails, costing local taxpayers $50.39 a day for each to be housed elsewhere. "It's the females stressing the jail," Oliva said. "When the police do their stings they are bringing in the population most affected (by overcrowding). That's why prostitutes have to be considered for early release." In his State of the City address, Webb highlighted the importance of pushing prostitution off East Colfax Avenue and out of the city with increased policing and weekly stings. In the first six months of the year the department's vice squad arrested 217 prostitutes, said Sgt. Mark Fleecs. But the arrests mean little once the word gets out that convicted hookers won't be spending much time in jail. "That's one of the things that has contributed so much in the past to recidivism," Fleecs said. "It's frustrating." Fleecs said that for the stings and increased patrols to have an impact they need to be backed by the rest of the criminal justice system. "That's really the bottom line," he said, "The jail is sort of the conclusion to all of the steps, and if there is no room there, then all of the steps that got a prostitute in jail are wasted." Christine Romano, executive director of the Beacon Club neighborhood policing office, also wants to see convicted prostitutes serve their time. To allow them early release weakens the city's message, she said. "This is really a ridiculous waste of police efforts and taxpayer dollars when we have this outcome," she said. "If there is no real punishment or threat of long-term punishment then the problem will continue as it has." The fact that Film-Tech is a front for a brothel may in fact bias your views on the subject, but I am hoping that you can indeed see my side of the issue here. If you cannot I suggest further study into the issue to see what is really going on here. I do not think that you fully understand the situation as it is and therefore are jumping to conclusions and seeing everything in a false light. If you look more closely at all that is going on, you will find that this is the way it is, and I think you'll come to agree on what must be done and on how to do it correctly. Hopefully you can see my point here.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-31-2002, 04:23 AM:
I agree Joe, but you are not thinking about the general feminist's position in regards to prostitution. Prostitution occupies a significant position at the intersection of feminist debates about the relationship between power, sex, sexuality and work. In this essay I examine first and second-wave feminist accounts of prostitution. These often situated prostitution in pervasive patterns of sexual economics and on a continuum with both other types of 'women's work' and other relationships like marriage. I then explore several recent feminist texts which argue against this continuum approach and which advance specific grounds for a principled feminist opposition to prostitution. My conclusion is that existing feminist accounts of prostitution are inadequate. I argue that we need new types of theories which avoid universal and essentialist claims about prostitution, which pay attention to the effects of feminists adopting an anti-prostitution stance and which contest dominant cultural discourses about sexuality. Many 'first-wave' feminist accounts of prostitution focused on issues of sexual economics, stressing the connections between sexual and economic practices. They argued that women were vulnerable to a 'fall' into prostitution because of the inadequate wages paid to women, because of their economic dependence on men as a result of marriage and childbearing, and because of a male demand for sex without love or responsibility (see Allen 1988). Most feminists argued that prostitution was both exploitative and demeaning for women. Consequently, while engaging in the 'rescue' and 'protection' of sex workers, they also usually looked to the abolition of the prostitution industry. Through this focus on sexual economics, many first-wave feminists drew significant contiguities between the position of prostitutes and the position of all women. They emphasised the relationship between prostitution and other 'women's work' as well as between prostitution and other relationships involving sexual- economic exchange, including marriage. As Emma Goldman argued in 1911: Nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but rather as a sex... it is merely a question of degree whether she sells herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men. The argument that prostitution exists on a continuum of sexual-economic exchange was also taken up by 'second-wave' feminists in the 1970s. They argued that in all areas of society women were forced into sexualised roles and into the (sexual/domestic) servicing of men in order to sustain themselves. From this perspective, it was simply the degree of overtness which separated the prostitute from other women. Some feminists like Jocelynne Scutt (1979) argued that marriage was a form of prostitution in which women received poor recompense for their work, were more vulnerable to violence (from their husbands), and had less control over their daily lives than sex workers. Feminists like Jocelyn Scutt and, more recently, Christine Overall (1992) have insisted that many of the arguments commonly used to condemn prostitution are without foundation and that prostitution cannot easily be distinguished from other types of sexual-economic exchange. As we shall see, however, Overall does suggest that there are some specific grounds on which feminists can condemn prostitution. While prostitution has been seen as problematic because it involves particular dangers for women, such as disease, indignity, physical and psychological abuse and emotional pain, Overall argues that danger and injury cannot be considered essential elements of sex work. Women are frequently subjected to disease, injury and psychological abuse in other workplaces such as offices and factories as well as in their own homes. Moreover, as Roberta Perkins (1991) has recently demonstrated in the Australian context, these factors may be absent altogether in sex work. When they are present they may be a specific consequence of the illegality of most prostitution-related activities. What needs then to be recognised is that sex work occurs under a wide range of conditions and circumstances - some better, some worse than others. Overall also examined the view that sex work was wrong because women were coerced into it. She concluded that all workers face an absence of choice in relation to their work and that the presence of coercion and the absence of consent were features of many women's activities under capitalism and male dominance. Thus, there is a need to acknowledge both the presence of (economic) coercion in paid work generally and the agency which some women exercise in relation to sex work. While some sex workers have very little choice about their work, others quite deliberately choose prostitution. Finally, Overall examines the claim that sex work should be condemned because of its lack of reciprocity. It is often argued that intimate personal acts should not be sold on the market but should be exchanged between equals in a respectful relationship. But as Overall points out, the retailing of intimacy is a common feature of modern life and of other paid work like therapy and massage (1992, p.715). In the case of both therapy and massage, equality and reciprocity are not usually features of the professional relationship. Moreover, it is only in the last few decades that these values have been seen as desirable in 'normal' intimate relations. It is clear, too, that the enormous differences between men and women, particularly in terms of economic, social and political resources, means that equality and reciprocity are rarely real features of contemporary relationships between adult men and women. If fairness, kindness, and respect were also acknowledged as important values - in the marketplace as well as in intimate relations (professional and personal) - then there would be no reason why prostitution would continue to suffer a definitional exclusion from the realm of morally acceptable work. Feminist approaches which situate prostitution on a continuum of sexual-economic relationships and which question popular accounts of prostitution tend to facilitate a broad feminist support for prostitute women. They 'cut across' dominant cultural meanings of prostitution by refusing to regard prostitutes as 'bad' women or prostitution as a sexual-economic exchange which is somehow radically different from other sorts of sexual-economic exchange held to be more 'normal'. In the 1970s Australian feminists used the continuum approach extensively. Anne Summers (1975) argued that prostitution played a central role in Australian history. This was because many of our non-Aboriginal 'founding mothers', the convict women transported to the Australian colonies between 1788 and 1867, were casual prostitutes in Britain. The organisation of convict settlements in Australia also meant that all women (particularly convict women but at a later point also free immigrant and Aboriginal women) were subjected to an 'enforced whoredom': in order to survive they were forced to trade sexual services for food, clothing and shelter. According to Summers, this situation shifted in the colonial period, when women were increasingly divided into 'good' and 'bad', either 'damned whores' or 'god's police'. It became the assigned role of 'good' women (a category that included married women, celibate spinsters and early feminists) to discipline and divert 'bad' women from their evil ways. The overall effect of this process was to divide and classify women as either 'maternal figures who are not sexual or as whores who are exclusively sexual'. Summers argued that these stereotypes functioned to discipline all women, for they ignored or actively repressed 'good' women's sexual needs ('good' women were seen to be asexual) and treated all sexually active women as 'bad' like prostitutes. It was in the interests of all women for these stereotypes to be broken down. Summers thought that one way this could be achieved was for 'good' women to refuse their traditional policing functions and for feminists publicly to identify themselves with those who were designated as 'bad': prostitutes, lesbians and prisoners. In the 1980s Summers' arguments were utilised by feminists like Jackson and Otto (1984) to argue that the dichotomy between prostitutes and other women was 'a form of social control of female sexuality' which 'makes the support of prostitutes by other women a matter of self-interest rather than moral imperative'. However, this approach was seen to involve a significant 'dilemma' for feminists. How could they provide effective support for prostitutes in the short term without compromising a feminist opposition to prostitution in the long term? Jackson and Otto regarded prostitution as the most blatant form of sexual exploitation, but similar patterns were seen in other areas of the paid workforce and in relationships like marriage. There were additional problems which had to do with the rights of all women to bodily self-determination. If the laws controlling prostitution were indeed 'laws on property, forbidding women to sell something (their bodies) that can only belong to men' (Bacon, 1976-77), then feminists could not adopt a stance which advocated the legal suppression of prostitution despite what was regarded as its inherent sexual exploitation. Several Australian feminists argued that the resolution of this 'dilemma' could be achieved by a focus on prostitution as 'sex work' (Aitkin 1978; Jackson and Otto 1984). Feminist support could then be confined to areas of immediate concern to prostitute women, such as wages and working conditions. Feminists could lobby for the decriminalisation of prostitution as a necessary precondition for improvements in the working conditions of sex workers without abandoning their long- term goal of abolition of the sex industry. It is notable that this approach did not mean an abandonment of a feminist opposition to prostitution or of the long-term goal of abolition of the sex industry. These issues were simply 'set aside'. This approach gave an important impetus to the formation of political alliances between feminists and sex workers. In Australia during the late 1970s and early 1980s feminists and feminist organisations (such as the Women's Electoral Lobby) actively campaigned for the decriminalisation of prostitution. Consequently, feminist arguments were used to support law reform initiatives in several states, most notably NSW (where street soliciting was decriminalised in 1979) and Victoria (where brothel prostitution was decriminalised in 1984). Since the mid-1980s, however, feminist support for the decriminalisation of prostitution would appear to have declined. In part, this relates to the tensions inherent in an approach which regards prostitution as fundamentally about sexual exploitation but which advocates decriminalisation as a short-term strategy. Feminists remain in substantial conflict about the sexual economics of prostitution, the moral status of the prostitution industry and the strategy of decriminalisation. In both Queensland and South Australia some feminists have argued that the law should be used to protect women and girls from exploitation within the sex industry and to dissuade men from participating in prostitution as clients. They have lobbied against measures - such as the decriminalisation and licensing of brothels - which were seen to offer state endorsement of the sex industry. Other feminists have lobbied for decriminalisation but remain in substantial disagreement about the form and extent of this process. In Victoria, the feminist law academic Marcia Neave - who conducted the government's Inquiry into Prostitution (1985) - argued in favour of a limited decriminalisation of street and brothel prostitution. However, the sense that there is something inherently wrong with the prostitution transaction was evident in her proposed new restrictions on prostitution advertising as part of an overall strategy designed to reduce the demand for prostitution. During the 1980s some feminist theorists rejected the whole idea of a continuum between prostitution and other aspects of women's sexual and economic lives. Carol Pateman (1988), for example, contended that prostitution was not like other work because the prostitution contract was not like other employment contracts. It should be kept in mind here that the main focus of Pateman's work is not prostitution but a critique of contractarianism within liberal theory. She is predominantly concerned about the way that concepts like 'freedom' and 'consent' are used in modern-day relations (for example, in employment, marriage and prostitution 'contracts') to oppress women. Like Overall, Pateman emphasises the coercive nature of all paid employment under capitalism. But she also argues that the position of prostitutes is different from that of other workers both because of the particular dangers involved in sex work (for example, the fact that prostitutes are often sought out by serial killers) and because of the nature of the work itself. In her view, the 'embodied' nature of prostitution means that it is not like other paid work. This is because, economically or otherwise, vulnerable women are coerced into 'selling sexual access to their bodies'. In our culture and time such 'sale of sexual access' is regarded as 'sale of self'. According to Pateman, this means that prostitution looks less like an employment contract for sexual services and more like sexual slavery which, of course, is to be condemned. Pateman does not argue that prostitution is sexual slavery, only that, in our culture and time, it appears like this (and consequently is usually experienced as such). The issue here is as much about discourses of sexuality and their effects on individuals as about prostitution contracts. Those who reject the argument that prostitution is the 'sale of bodies' (and, therefore, sexual slavery) often contend that prostitutes sell only sexual services or the illusion of sexual intimacy. This position is often adopted by sex workers themselves. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to 'step outside' cultural meanings. For the community at large, sex work is regarded as a profound sale of self. This is, I think, why sex workers are disparaged and abused (by clients, the community, the judicial system and often too, feminists). Pateman is concerned with the political relationship between the sex industry and the maintenance of male dominance. In her view, the fact that men can purchase sexual access to women via the sex industry is intimately connected to the establishment of their public and private power over women. As she sees it, masculinity and femininity are sexual identities which are confirmed in sexual activity and, in particular, via heterosexual intercourse. Men create and maintain their sense of themselves - both as men and as women's civil masters - in heterosexual intercourse. But it is the public nature of the sex industry which makes it particularly problematic: When women's bodies are on sale as commodities in the capitalist market, the terms of the original contract (which is about men's civil power) cannot be forgotten; the law of male sex-right is publicly affirmed, and men gain public acknowledgement as women's sexual masters. Pateman's point about a general relationship in our culture between heterosexuality and men's power is quite convincing. But the problem she identifies is clearly about heterosexual identity (for men) and its cultural and political meanings rather than about prostitution per se. The power associated with men's heterosexual identity is produced and affirmed in a range of public institutions, the most obvious and visible of which is the institution of marriage. While the sex industry is neither invisible nor irrelevant, it cannot claim the power and legitimacy of these more 'normal' public institutions which affirm male dominance. Although Pateman is opposed to both marriage and prostitution contracts, she is explicit in her condemnation of prostitution and considerably less forthright about the institution of marriage. Pateman correctly draws attention to dominant cultural meanings of prostitution and their effects on prostitute women. But ultimately she reinforces these cultural meanings by treating them as fixed and given. If prostitution is problematic because of contingent, culturally based assumptions about the bodily submission involved in sex work, then a feminist condemnation of sex work based on its conceptualisation as always 'sexual slavery' is simply repeating and reinforcing these cultural assumptions. Different cultural understandings of prostitution can and do exist in the Australian community. In popular culture as well as in some feminist history and fiction, prostitute women are often represented not as sexual slaves but as rebels and resistors of male power and as women who are cleverly seeking to maximise their conditions and opportunities in a problematic environment (see for example Daniels, 1984; Horn and Pringle, 1984). Feminist efforts to intervene in and change the present practice of prostitution could place their emphasis on contesting dominant cultural meanings of prostitution (as 'sale of self') and bringing marginalised discourses, about prostitutes as rebels and empowered women, into the mainstream. Two other recent texts, very different from Pateman's, have also attempted to elaborate the foundation for a principled feminist opposition to prostitution. Like Pateman, Christine Overall (1992) and Laurie Shrage (1989) reject the continuum argument and stress that there are clear differences between prostitution and other types of sexual economic exchange. Overall concludes that 'sex work differs in a crucial way from other forms of women's labour', because it is not 'reversible'. Nothing about the service, nurturing and domestic work that is presently done by women for men would prevent its being done by men for women, by men for men, or by women for women in an ideal (postcapitalist and postpatriarchal) world. She also contends that: the value of office workers, sales clerks, cooks, cleaners and child care workers has a value independent of the (present) conditions of sexual and economic inequality under which it is done, and much of it would still be socially necessary in a postcapitalist, postpatriarchal world. By contrast, sex work, argues Overall, is not inherently valuable or ,reversible' because it involves a commoditisation of sex (which could not exist in a postcapitalist world) and because prostitution is essentially premised on conditions of sexual and economic inequality (which would disappear in a postpatriarchal society). In a similar vein, Laurie Shrage has argued that commercial sex, unlike marriage, is not 'reformable'. She suggests that 'because marriage can be founded on principles which do not involve the subordination of women, we can challenge oppressive aspects of this institution without radically altering it' (1989, p.360). The sex industry is not similarly situated and feminists are therefore justified in adopting a principled opposition to prostitution. But there is probably no inherent reason why sex work should not also be regarded as 'reversible' or 'reformable', unless one adopts fixed notions about the essential nature of male and female sexuality. There is also no basis for assuming that in a postcapitalist, postpatriarchal world, sex work would not be valued. In a world where sex and power were connected (or not connected) in quite different ways from our own, the knowledge which professional sex workers have could well be of use to men and women in the simple pursuit of sexual recreation and pleasure. In this case a desire to acquire specialist and expert knowledge would be the main reason for visiting a sex worker, in the same way that (even in a postpatriarchal world) one might visit a doctor for specialist medical advice. Of course, an approach like this is premised on an acceptance of the validity of a wide range of different sorts of sexual relationships. Sex is not inherently 'sacred' or meaningful. Some might consider it to be so, particularly in the context of a monogamous partnership. However, sex might also be a valid part of non-monogamous, non- romantic relationships focused on pleasure, play, companionship and earning a living. Even at present, there are clear grounds on which feminists could argue for a re-evaluation of the work prostitutes do. Many sex workers have specific knowledge and skills - for example, about the problems involved in recommended regimes for 'safe sex' - which are of value to the wider community. This knowledge has already been utilised by researchers and by state health authorities in Australia in the planning of AIDS prevention programs designed for the whole community. This does not mean that the prostitution industry - as it is presently constituted - is without major problems. Prostitutes face a number of significant hazards - including violence from clients, legal discrimination, health problems and a cultural stigmatisation of their work. I am also not suggesting that prostitution is inherently empowering for women. Perkins has recently argued that a feminist re-evaluation of prostitution is needed because 'female prostitution is a social situation in which women have more power over sexual interactions than in any other circumstance involving both sexes interacting' (1991, p.389). She says that because prostitutes can set limits on the work they do, because they acquire economic power and 'knowledge of true male sexuality' in their working lives, they are 'a far cry from the common feminist assumption of prostitutes as the most explicit example of female oppression'Perkins's empirical investigation of a group of sex workers in Sydney does provide a valuable corrective to feminist accounts of prostitution which represent prostitutes as special victims of patriarchy. As she suggests, there is also a need for a feminist re-evaluation of prostitution. Her research indicates that prostitutes are like other, 'normal', women and their clients are like other 'normal' men. Many prostitutes do assert a significant amount of control over their working lives and, like other employees (even under capitalism), can often feel empowered by their work. Perkins found that most of the women in her sample had not been arrested, raped or subjected to other assaults at work and that the vast majority did not take drugs or, alternatively, did not increase their drug usage as a result of engaging in sex work. Moreover, they were more likely than other women to be orgasmic in their private lives. O'Leary (1992) has criticised Perkins's study on several grounds. She says that Perkins's sample is concentrated on the upper echelons of the prostitute workforce - brothel workers and call girls - and does not include ex-workers. Consequently, her results tend to be more favourable and to 'gloss over' the dangers sex workers face. This would appear to be a valid argument. But O'Leary is also critical of Perkins's view that prostitution inherently empowers women. She says that prostitutes can be empowered and empowering only within pre-existing patriarchal confines and that this means they cannot do what is necessary, which is to mount an overall challenge to patriarchy. This sort of feminist approach glosses over the ways in which prostitutes are empowered - at least economically - particularly in relation to other women workers. It also fails to establish any specific grounds on which to condemn prostitution. As Elizabeth Grosz argues (1994), our 'struggles are inherently impure and always bound up with what we struggle against. For Grosz this means that feminists need to refuse 'the fantasy of a position safe or insulated from what it criticises', for it is impossible to engage in any work, political or sexual activity and not be to some degree complicit in the perpetuation of existing structures of power. Of course, non-engagement is equally impossible. This does not mean that all activities and relationships are equally worthy; some may ,stretch' and challenge (rather than totally subvert) dominant paradigms, while others will not take issue with the status quo. But it is not clear to me that many prostitutes (as well as many married women, mothers and lesbians) do not already challenge and stretch dominant paradigms in their personal and working lives. Judgments about the degree of challenge and complicity need to be specific and contextual. It is probably impossible, then, to describe prostitution as either inherently empowering or disempowering for women. There are many problems in the sex industry as it is presently constituted. However, the sex industry is not unique in this regard. To varying degrees, sexual oppression is a problem right across the board in Australian public life - for example in work and parliamentary politics - as well as in private institutions like marriage and the family. Clearly, some workplaces and families are better than others; and some types of prostitution are less problematic than others. Perhaps what feminists need to emphasise is that the power relayed in the sex industry - as well as elsewhere - is both contingent and contestable. There are several grounds for suggesting that existing accounts of prostitution, including some feminist ones, are inadequate. First, if we make 'big' arguments or construct universal theories about the essential 'wrongness' of prostitution, we may be unable to locate and deal with specific differences and problems. There are obvious differences, for example, between prostitution in Thailand and in Australia. Thailand's developing economy means that there is a shortage of alternative forms of paid work for women and an absence of public welfare. Even in the Australian context there are important differences between working in an 'upmarket' legal brothel in Melbourne and being a drug-addicted street prostitute in Kings Cross. Sex workers in these environments will share some problems (like the cultural stigmatisation of their work) but will also have a number of different concerns and problems. What we need are more careful and nuanced accounts of prostitution which are able to both specify differences and problems (for example, the legal harassment faced by street prostitutes in Australian cities) and point to strategies for solving problems. Such strategies might include a broader feminist support for the decriminalisation of street prostitution as well as discursive approaches designed to reduce the cultural stigma faced by prostitute women (for example, refraining from making principled statements of opposition to prostitution). Second, arguments about the inherent 'wrongness' of prostitution lead inevitably to arguments about the 'wrongness' of sex workers. This tends to affirm dominant cultural and legal discourses about the essentially corrupt nature of prostitute women. It also undermines the possibility of productive alliances between feminists and sex workers, alliances which are an important part of reform processes. Elsewhere (Sullivan 1991), I have argued that prostitute women have been marked out in Australian legal and political culture over the last century as essentially bad and deviant women. This is a trend which has accelerated (and which has started to similarly mark out male clients) over the last 30 years. As social ideals of equality and mutuality between men and women have become widespread, prostitution has increasingly been designated as the dark underside of 'normal' sexual relations. With the advent of new public concerns about HIV and AIDS, the prostitution industry has also been singled out as a particular threat to the health of the community. These changes have had ongoing effects for prostitutes including, most notably, increased legal harassment and cultural stigmatisation. Despite the fact that male clients constitute the largest single group within the sex industry and that prostitution laws are now written in 'gender neutral' language, women remain the vast majority of those arrested and gaoled for prostitution offences throughout Australia. The cultural stigmatisation of sex work also makes prostitutes a particular target for male violence. At the same time, their recourse to legal redress is significantly reduced; prostitutes who have been raped are even less likely than other women to receive fair treatment in the judicial system. As I have noted above, feminists have often struggled to support prostitutes while maintaining an opposition to prostitution. They have argued that it is possible to condemn prostitution without condemning those who perform sex work. But this is a difficult - possibly incoherent - position to maintain. Moreover, some recent feminist accounts of prostitution do specifically condemn prostitutes. Shrage (1989), for example, argues that prostitutes are complicit with the patriarchal domination of all women. Overall (1992) argues that prostitutes perpetuate rather than challenge patriarchy, although she concludes that it ,makes sense to defend prostitutes' entitlement to do their work but not to defend prostitution itself as a practice under patriarchy'. In my view, this position does not make sense. If the sex industry is particularly responsible for the subordination of women, then it is not logical for feminists to defend prostitutes' right to do sex work. But, as 1 have argued above, it is problematic for feminists to argue that sex workers are particularly complicit in the patriarchal domination of women. If feminist arguments about the inherent 'wrongness' of prostitution tend to slide into and collude with dominant discourse about the inherent 'badness' of sex workers, then feminists must position themselves much more carefully if they wish to avoid endangering the lives and livelihoods of prostitute women. Feminist arguments against prostitution do have the capacity to reinforce the stigmatisation of sex workers, thus increasing prostitutes' vulnerability to violence and decreasing their ability to negotiate, on favourable terms, with clients, the owners of sex businesses, and public authorities. These sorts of problems - which are related to the effects of particular feminist discursive practices and theoretical positions - cannot be simply set aside as irrelevant or unimportant. They are also not 'solved' by feminist approaches which emphasise the need to refocus analysis on male clients and 'the problem of demand'. My third reason for suggesting the need for new approaches to prostitution is based on the general need for feminists to contest rather than confirm dominant cultural discourses about sexuality. In our culture sexual difference is usually talked about via notions of (men's) bodily integrity and (women's) bodily submission. Women's bodies are marked out as vulnerable, violable and possessable. In heterosexual intercourse, women's bodies are said to be 'entered' or 'penetrated' by men's bodies. Young women are said to 'lose' their virginity while prostitutes are seen to 'sell themselves'. This means that women are perceived to have a 'normal' lack of bodily integrity and, thus, bodily autonomy. In our culture and time this 'lack' is akin to a deficiency of selfhood (see Marcus 1992). All women are disempowered by these ways of thinking and talking about sexual difference. However, for some women - prostitutes and victims of sexual assault are an obvious example - these discourses are particularly burdensome. They mark out prostitutes and rape victims as particularly damaged and violated, as 'fallen' and shameful women who lack, lose or sell their bodily integrity (and, thus, themselves). Sharon Marcus has argued that rape can be both contested and prevented by attention to the discursive construction of 'rape scripts'. She points out that in our culture the most common ways of talking and thinking about rape, sexuality and gendered violence invite women to position themselves as endangered, violable and fearful; men are invited to position themselves as legitimately violent and entitled to women's sexual services (1992: 390). This language situates women as inherently rapable and structures the experience of rape for both male perpetrators (who feel empowered) and female victims (who feel violated, invaded and humiliated). This is what poststructuralist theorists like Marcus mean by the discursive construction of 'experience'; rape victims are subjected to real physical acts, but the cultural meaning assigned to these acts largely (but not completely) determines how they will be experienced and 'embodied' by women. Marcus proposes that feminist anti-rape strategies could usefully be focused on disrupting and eradicating rape scripts. This involves displacing the emphasis on what existing rape scripts promote - men's power and capacity to rape - and putting into discourse what is presently stultified and excluded, that is, women's will, agency, and capacity for violence. The idea is to transform dominant ways of talking about women, female sexuality and rape as a way of both preventing rape and transforming the destructive experience of rape for women. This sort of approach points to new feminist strategies in relation to prostitution. In our culture prostitutes are marked out as women who are bad, who sell themselves and are different from other women. I have already suggested that feminist arguments which stress the continuities between prostitution and other forms of sexual-economic exchange 'cut across' these dominant cultural discourses. I have also suggested that feminist positions which refuse this continuum approach and which posit both essentialist and universal accounts of prostitution fail to contest dominant cultural discourses about sexuality and prostitution. In conclusion, at a minimum, feminists need to refrain from making principled statements of opposition to prostitution. But this is unlikely to be enough. What we need are feminist accounts of prostitution which assert the will and agency of prostitutes, which emphasise their capacity to resist male violence, which refuse the notion that women sell themselves in prostitution, and which reconfigure prostitution transactions. This sort of discursive strategy would change the often destructive discourses which prostitute women are presently forced to embody. It would also change the experience of being a male client, challenging men to embody new forms of sexuality. This sort of discursive strategy would also contribute to a broader feminist project which is addressed to the reconfiguration of 'normal' ways of talking about women, sexual difference and sexuality. Prostitution occupies a significant position at the intersection of feminist debates about the relationship between power, sex, sexuality and work. In this essay I examine first and second-wave feminist accounts of prostitution. These often situated prostitution in pervasive patterns of sexual economics and on a continuum with both other types of 'women's work' and other relationships like marriage. I then explore several recent feminist texts which argue against this continuum approach and which advance specific grounds for a principled feminist opposition to prostitution. My conclusion is that existing feminist accounts of prostitution are inadequate. I argue that we need new types of theories which avoid universal and essentialist claims about prostitution, which pay attention to the effects of feminists adopting an anti-prostitution stance and which contest dominant cultural discourses about sexuality. Many 'first-wave' feminist accounts of prostitution focused on issues of sexual economics, stressing the connections between sexual and economic practices. They argued that women were vulnerable to a 'fall' into prostitution because of the inadequate wages paid to women, because of their economic dependence on men as a result of marriage and childbearing, and because of a male demand for sex without love or responsibility (see Allen 1988). Most feminists argued that prostitution was both exploitative and demeaning for women. Consequently, while engaging in the 'rescue' and 'protection' of sex workers, they also usually looked to the abolition of the prostitution industry. Through this focus on sexual economics, many first-wave feminists drew significant contiguities between the position of prostitutes and the position of all women. They emphasised the relationship between prostitution and other 'women's work' as well as between prostitution and other relationships involving sexual- economic exchange, including marriage. As Emma Goldman argued in 1911: Nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but rather as a sex... it is merely a question of degree whether she sells herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men. The argument that prostitution exists on a continuum of sexual-economic exchange was also taken up by 'second-wave' feminists in the 1970s. They argued that in all areas of society women were forced into sexualised roles and into the (sexual/domestic) servicing of men in order to sustain themselves. From this perspective, it was simply the degree of overtness which separated the prostitute from other women. Some feminists like Jocelynne Scutt (1979) argued that marriage was a form of prostitution in which women received poor recompense for their work, were more vulnerable to violence (from their husbands), and had less control over their daily lives than sex workers. Feminists like Jocelyn Scutt and, more recently, Christine Overall (1992) have insisted that many of the arguments commonly used to condemn prostitution are without foundation and that prostitution cannot easily be distinguished from other types of sexual-economic exchange. As we shall see, however, Overall does suggest that there are some specific grounds on which feminists can condemn prostitution. While prostitution has been seen as problematic because it involves particular dangers for women, such as disease, indignity, physical and psychological abuse and emotional pain, Overall argues that danger and injury cannot be considered essential elements of sex work. Women are frequently subjected to disease, injury and psychological abuse in other workplaces such as offices and factories as well as in their own homes. Moreover, as Roberta Perkins (1991) has recently demonstrated in the Australian context, these factors may be absent altogether in sex work. When they are present they may be a specific consequence of the illegality of most prostitution-related activities. What needs then to be recognised is that sex work occurs under a wide range of conditions and circumstances - some better, some worse than others. Overall also examined the view that sex work was wrong because women were coerced into it. She concluded that all workers face an absence of choice in relation to their work and that the presence of coercion and the absence of consent were features of many women's activities under capitalism and male dominance. Thus, there is a need to acknowledge both the presence of (economic) coercion in paid work generally and the agency which some women exercise in relation to sex work. While some sex workers have very little choice about their work, others quite deliberately choose prostitution. Finally, Overall examines the claim that sex work should be condemned because of its lack of reciprocity. It is often argued that intimate personal acts should not be sold on the market but should be exchanged between equals in a respectful relationship. But as Overall points out, the retailing of intimacy is a common feature of modern life and of other paid work like therapy and massage (1992, p.715). In the case of both therapy and massage, equality and reciprocity are not usually features of the professional relationship. Moreover, it is only in the last few decades that these values have been seen as desirable in 'normal' intimate relations. It is clear, too, that the enormous differences between men and women, particularly in terms of economic, social and political resources, means that equality and reciprocity are rarely real features of contemporary relationships between adult men and women. If fairness, kindness, and respect were also acknowledged as important values - in the marketplace as well as in intimate relations (professional and personal) - then there would be no reason why prostitution would continue to suffer a definitional exclusion from the realm of morally acceptable work. Feminist approaches which situate prostitution on a continuum of sexual-economic relationships and which question popular accounts of prostitution tend to facilitate a broad feminist support for prostitute women. They 'cut across' dominant cultural meanings of prostitution by refusing to regard prostitutes as 'bad' women or prostitution as a sexual-economic exchange which is somehow radically different from other sorts of sexual-economic exchange held to be more 'normal'. In the 1970s Australian feminists used the continuum approach extensively. Anne Summers (1975) argued that prostitution played a central role in Australian history. This was because many of our non-Aboriginal 'founding mothers', the convict women transported to the Australian colonies between 1788 and 1867, were casual prostitutes in Britain. The organisation of convict settlements in Australia also meant that all women (particularly convict women but at a later point also free immigrant and Aboriginal women) were subjected to an 'enforced whoredom': in order to survive they were forced to trade sexual services for food, clothing and shelter. According to Summers, this situation shifted in the colonial period, when women were increasingly divided into 'good' and 'bad', either 'damned whores' or 'god's police'. It became the assigned role of 'good' women (a category that included married women, celibate spinsters and early feminists) to discipline and divert 'bad' women from their evil ways. The overall effect of this process was to divide and classify women as either 'maternal figures who are not sexual or as whores who are exclusively sexual'. Summers argued that these stereotypes functioned to discipline all women, for they ignored or actively repressed 'good' women's sexual needs ('good' women were seen to be asexual) and treated all sexually active women as 'bad' like prostitutes. It was in the interests of all women for these stereotypes to be broken down. Summers thought that one way this could be achieved was for 'good' women to refuse their traditional policing functions and for feminists publicly to identify themselves with those who were designated as 'bad': prostitutes, lesbians and prisoners. In the 1980s Summers' arguments were utilised by feminists like Jackson and Otto (1984) to argue that the dichotomy between prostitutes and other women was 'a form of social control of female sexuality' which 'makes the support of prostitutes by other women a matter of self-interest rather than moral imperative'. However, this approach was seen to involve a significant 'dilemma' for feminists. How could they provide effective support for prostitutes in the short term without compromising a feminist opposition to prostitution in the long term? Jackson and Otto regarded prostitution as the most blatant form of sexual exploitation, but similar patterns were seen in other areas of the paid workforce and in relationships like marriage. There were additional problems which had to do with the rights of all women to bodily self-determination. If the laws controlling prostitution were indeed 'laws on property, forbidding women to sell something (their bodies) that can only belong to men' (Bacon, 1976-77), then feminists could not adopt a stance which advocated the legal suppression of prostitution despite what was regarded as its inherent sexual exploitation. Several Australian feminists argued that the resolution of this 'dilemma' could be achieved by a focus on prostitution as 'sex work' (Aitkin 1978; Jackson and Otto 1984). Feminist support could then be confined to areas of immediate concern to prostitute women, such as wages and working conditions. Feminists could lobby for the decriminalisation of prostitution as a necessary precondition for improvements in the working conditions of sex workers without abandoning their long- term goal of abolition of the sex industry. It is notable that this approach did not mean an abandonment of a feminist opposition to prostitution or of the long-term goal of abolition of the sex industry. These issues were simply 'set aside'. This approach gave an important impetus to the formation of political alliances between feminists and sex workers. In Australia during the late 1970s and early 1980s feminists and feminist organisations (such as the Women's Electoral Lobby) actively campaigned for the decriminalisation of prostitution. Consequently, feminist arguments were used to support law reform initiatives in several states, most notably NSW (where street soliciting was decriminalised in 1979) and Victoria (where brothel prostitution was decriminalised in 1984). Since the mid-1980s, however, feminist support for the decriminalisation of prostitution would appear to have declined. In part, this relates to the tensions inherent in an approach which regards prostitution as fundamentally about sexual exploitation but which advocates decriminalisation as a short-term strategy. Feminists remain in substantial conflict about the sexual economics of prostitution, the moral status of the prostitution industry and the strategy of decriminalisation. In both Queensland and South Australia some feminists have argued that the law should be used to protect women and girls from exploitation within the sex industry and to dissuade men from participating in prostitution as clients. They have lobbied against measures - such as the decriminalisation and licensing of brothels - which were seen to offer state endorsement of the sex industry. Other feminists have lobbied for decriminalisation but remain in substantial disagreement about the form and extent of this process. In Victoria, the feminist law academic Marcia Neave - who conducted the government's Inquiry into Prostitution (1985) - argued in favour of a limited decriminalisation of street and brothel prostitution. However, the sense that there is something inherently wrong with the prostitution transaction was evident in her proposed new restrictions on prostitution advertising as part of an overall strategy designed to reduce the demand for prostitution. During the 1980s some feminist theorists rejected the whole idea of a continuum between prostitution and other aspects of women's sexual and economic lives. Carol Pateman (1988), for example, contended that prostitution was not like other work because the prostitution contract was not like other employment contracts. It should be kept in mind here that the main focus of Pateman's work is not prostitution but a critique of contractarianism within liberal theory. She is predominantly concerned about the way that concepts like 'freedom' and 'consent' are used in modern-day relations (for example, in employment, marriage and prostitution 'contracts') to oppress women. Like Overall, Pateman emphasises the coercive nature of all paid employment under capitalism. But she also argues that the position of prostitutes is different from that of other workers both because of the particular dangers involved in sex work (for example, the fact that prostitutes are often sought out by serial killers) and because of the nature of the work itself. In her view, the 'embodied' nature of prostitution means that it is not like other paid work. This is because, economically or otherwise, vulnerable women are coerced into 'selling sexual access to their bodies'. In our culture and time such 'sale of sexual access' is regarded as 'sale of self'. According to Pateman, this means that prostitution looks less like an employment contract for sexual services and more like sexual slavery which, of course, is to be condemned. Pateman does not argue that prostitution is sexual slavery, only that, in our culture and time, it appears like this (and consequently is usually experienced as such). The issue here is as much about discourses of sexuality and their effects on individuals as about prostitution contracts. Those who reject the argument that prostitution is the 'sale of bodies' (and, therefore, sexual slavery) often contend that prostitutes sell only sexual services or the illusion of sexual intimacy. This position is often adopted by sex workers themselves. But it is difficult, if not impossible, to 'step outside' cultural meanings. For the community at large, sex work is regarded as a profound sale of self. This is, I think, why sex workers are disparaged and abused (by clients, the community, the judicial system and often too, feminists). Pateman is concerned with the political relationship between the sex industry and the maintenance of male dominance. In her view, the fact that men can purchase sexual access to women via the sex industry is intimately connected to the establishment of their public and private power over women. As she sees it, masculinity and femininity are sexual identities which are confirmed in sexual activity and, in particular, via heterosexual intercourse. Men create and maintain their sense of themselves - both as men and as women's civil masters - in heterosexual intercourse. But it is the public nature of the sex industry which makes it particularly problematic: When women's bodies are on sale as commodities in the capitalist market, the terms of the original contract (which is about men's civil power) cannot be forgotten; the law of male sex-right is publicly affirmed, and men gain public acknowledgement as women's sexual masters. Pateman's point about a general relationship in our culture between heterosexuality and men's power is quite convincing. But the problem she identifies is clearly about heterosexual identity (for men) and its cultural and political meanings rather than about prostitution per se. The power associated with men's heterosexual identity is produced and affirmed in a range of public institutions, the most obvious and visible of which is the institution of marriage. While the sex industry is neither invisible nor irrelevant, it cannot claim the power and legitimacy of these more 'normal' public institutions which affirm male dominance. Although Pateman is opposed to both marriage and prostitution contracts, she is explicit in her condemnation of prostitution and considerably less forthright about the institution of marriage. Pateman correctly draws attention to dominant cultural meanings of prostitution and their effects on prostitute women. But ultimately she reinforces these cultural meanings by treating them as fixed and given. If prostitution is problematic because of contingent, culturally based assumptions about the bodily submission involved in sex work, then a feminist condemnation of sex work based on its conceptualisation as always 'sexual slavery' is simply repeating and reinforcing these cultural assumptions. Different cultural understandings of prostitution can and do exist in the Australian community. In popular culture as well as in some feminist history and fiction, prostitute women are often represented not as sexual slaves but as rebels and resistors of male power and as women who are cleverly seeking to maximise their conditions and opportunities in a problematic environment (see for example Daniels, 1984; Horn and Pringle, 1984). Feminist efforts to intervene in and change the present practice of prostitution could place their emphasis on contesting dominant cultural meanings of prostitution (as 'sale of self') and bringing marginalised discourses, about prostitutes as rebels and empowered women, into the mainstream. Two other recent texts, very different from Pateman's, have also attempted to elaborate the foundation for a principled feminist opposition to prostitution. Like Pateman, Christine Overall (1992) and Laurie Shrage (1989) reject the continuum argument and stress that there are clear differences between prostitution and other types of sexual economic exchange. Overall concludes that 'sex work differs in a crucial way from other forms of women's labour', because it is not 'reversible'. Nothing about the service, nurturing and domestic work that is presently done by women for men would prevent its being done by men for women, by men for men, or by women for women in an ideal (postcapitalist and postpatriarchal) world. She also contends that: the value of office workers, sales clerks, cooks, cleaners and child care workers has a value independent of the (present) conditions of sexual and economic inequality under which it is done, and much of it would still be socially necessary in a postcapitalist, postpatriarchal world. By contrast, sex work, argues Overall, is not inherently valuable or ,reversible' because it involves a commoditisation of sex (which could not exist in a postcapitalist world) and because prostitution is essentially premised on conditions of sexual and economic inequality (which would disappear in a postpatriarchal society). In a similar vein, Laurie Shrage has argued that commercial sex, unlike marriage, is not 'reformable'. She suggests that 'because marriage can be founded on principles which do not involve the subordination of women, we can challenge oppressive aspects of this institution without radically altering it' (1989, p.360). The sex industry is not similarly situated and feminists are therefore justified in adopting a principled opposition to prostitution. But there is probably no inherent reason why sex work should not also be regarded as 'reversible' or 'reformable', unless one adopts fixed notions about the essential nature of male and female sexuality. There is also no basis for assuming that in a postcapitalist, postpatriarchal world, sex work would not be valued. In a world where sex and power were connected (or not connected) in quite different ways from our own, the knowledge which professional sex workers have could well be of use to men and women in the simple pursuit of sexual recreation and pleasure. In this case a desire to acquire specialist and expert knowledge would be the main reason for visiting a sex worker, in the same way that (even in a postpatriarchal world) one might visit a doctor for specialist medical advice. Of course, an approach like this is premised on an acceptance of the validity of a wide range of different sorts of sexual relationships. Sex is not inherently 'sacred' or meaningful. Some might consider it to be so, particularly in the context of a monogamous partnership. However, sex might also be a valid part of non-monogamous, non- romantic relationships focused on pleasure, play, companionship and earning a living. Even at present, there are clear grounds on which feminists could argue for a re-evaluation of the work prostitutes do. Many sex workers have specific knowledge and skills - for example, about the problems involved in recommended regimes for 'safe sex' - which are of value to the wider community. This knowledge has already been utilised by researchers and by state health authorities in Australia in the planning of AIDS prevention programs designed for the whole community. This does not mean that the prostitution industry - as it is presently constituted - is without major problems. Prostitutes face a number of significant hazards - including violence from clients, legal discrimination, health problems and a cultural stigmatisation of their work. I am also not suggesting that prostitution is inherently empowering for women. Perkins has recently argued that a feminist re-evaluation of prostitution is needed because 'female prostitution is a social situation in which women have more power over sexual interactions than in any other circumstance involving both sexes interacting' (1991, p.389). She says that because prostitutes can set limits on the work they do, because they acquire economic power and 'knowledge of true male sexuality' in their working lives, they are 'a far cry from the common feminist assumption of prostitutes as the most explicit example of female oppression'Perkins's empirical investigation of a group of sex workers in Sydney does provide a valuable corrective to feminist accounts of prostitution which represent prostitutes as special victims of patriarchy. As she suggests, there is also a need for a feminist re-evaluation of prostitution. Her research indicates that prostitutes are like other, 'normal', women and their clients are like other 'normal' men. Many prostitutes do assert a significant amount of control over their working lives and, like other employees (even under capitalism), can often feel empowered by their work. Perkins found that most of the women in her sample had not been arrested, raped or subjected to other assaults at work and that the vast majority did not take drugs or, alternatively, did not increase their drug usage as a result of engaging in sex work. Moreover, they were more likely than other women to be orgasmic in their private lives. O'Leary (1992) has criticised Perkins's study on several grounds. She says that Perkins's sample is concentrated on the upper echelons of the prostitute workforce - brothel workers and call girls - and does not include ex-workers. Consequently, her results tend to be more favourable and to 'gloss over' the dangers sex workers face. This would appear to be a valid argument. But O'Leary is also critical of Perkins's view that prostitution inherently empowers women. She says that prostitutes can be empowered and empowering only within pre-existing patriarchal confines and that this means they cannot do what is necessary, which is to mount an overall challenge to patriarchy. This sort of feminist approach glosses over the ways in which prostitutes are empowered - at least economically - particularly in relation to other women workers. It also fails to establish any specific grounds on which to condemn prostitution. As Elizabeth Grosz argues (1994), our 'struggles are inherently impure and always bound up with what we struggle against. For Grosz this means that feminists need to refuse 'the fantasy of a position safe or insulated from what it criticises', for it is impossible to engage in any work, political or sexual activity and not be to some degree complicit in the perpetuation of existing structures of power. Of course, non-engagement is equally impossible. This does not mean that all activities and relationships are equally worthy; some may ,stretch' and challenge (rather than totally subvert) dominant paradigms, while others will not take issue with the status quo. But it is not clear to me that many prostitutes (as well as many married women, mothers and lesbians) do not already challenge and stretch dominant paradigms in their personal and working lives. Judgments about the degree of challenge and complicity need to be specific and contextual. It is probably impossible, then, to describe prostitution as either inherently empowering or disempowering for women. There are many problems in the sex industry as it is presently constituted. However, the sex industry is not unique in this regard. To varying degrees, sexual oppression is a problem right across the board in Australian public life - for example in work and parliamentary politics - as well as in private institutions like marriage and the family. Clearly, some workplaces and families are better than others; and some types of prostitution are less problematic than others. Perhaps what feminists need to emphasise is that the power relayed in the sex industry - as well as elsewhere - is both contingent and contestable. There are several grounds for suggesting that existing accounts of prostitution, including some feminist ones, are inadequate. First, if we make 'big' arguments or construct universal theories about the essential 'wrongness' of prostitution, we may be unable to locate and deal with specific differences and problems. There are obvious differences, for example, between prostitution in Thailand and in Australia. Thailand's developing economy means that there is a shortage of alternative forms of paid work for women and an absence of public welfare. Even in the Australian context there are important differences between working in an 'upmarket' legal brothel in Melbourne and being a drug-addicted street prostitute in Kings Cross. Sex workers in these environments will share some problems (like the cultural stigmatisation of their work) but will also have a number of different concerns and problems. What we need are more careful and nuanced accounts of prostitution which are able to both specify differences and problems (for example, the legal harassment faced by street prostitutes in Australian cities) and point to strategies for solving problems. Such strategies might include a broader feminist support for the decriminalisation of street prostitution as well as discursive approaches designed to reduce the cultural stigma faced by prostitute women (for example, refraining from making principled statements of opposition to prostitution). Second, arguments about the inherent 'wrongness' of prostitution lead inevitably to arguments about the 'wrongness' of sex workers. This tends to affirm dominant cultural and legal discourses about the essentially corrupt nature of prostitute women. It also undermines the possibility of productive alliances between feminists and sex workers, alliances which are an important part of reform processes. Elsewhere (Sullivan 1991), I have argued that prostitute women have been marked out in Australian legal and political culture over the last century as essentially bad and deviant women. This is a trend which has accelerated (and which has started to similarly mark out male clients) over the last 30 years. As social ideals of equality and mutuality between men and women have become widespread, prostitution has increasingly been designated as the dark underside of 'normal' sexual relations. With the advent of new public concerns about HIV and AIDS, the prostitution industry has also been singled out as a particular threat to the health of the community. These changes have had ongoing effects for prostitutes including, most notably, increased legal harassment and cultural stigmatisation. Despite the fact that male clients constitute the largest single group within the sex industry and that prostitution laws are now written in 'gender neutral' language, women remain the vast majority of those arrested and gaoled for prostitution offences throughout Australia. The cultural stigmatisation of sex work also makes prostitutes a particular target for male violence. At the same time, their recourse to legal redress is significantly reduced; prostitutes who have been raped are even less likely than other women to receive fair treatment in the judicial system. As I have noted above, feminists have often struggled to support prostitutes while maintaining an opposition to prostitution. They have argued that it is possible to condemn prostitution without condemning those who perform sex work. But this is a difficult - possibly incoherent - position to maintain. Moreover, some recent feminist accounts of prostitution do specifically condemn prostitutes. Shrage (1989), for example, argues that prostitutes are complicit with the patriarchal domination of all women. Overall (1992) argues that prostitutes perpetuate rather than challenge patriarchy, although she concludes that it ,makes sense to defend prostitutes' entitlement to do their work but not to defend prostitution itself as a practice under patriarchy'. In my view, this position does not make sense. If the sex industry is particularly responsible for the subordination of women, then it is not logical for feminists to defend prostitutes' right to do sex work. But, as 1 have argued above, it is problematic for feminists to argue that sex workers are particularly complicit in the patriarchal domination of women. If feminist arguments about the inherent 'wrongness' of prostitution tend to slide into and collude with dominant discourse about the inherent 'badness' of sex workers, then feminists must position themselves much more carefully if they wish to avoid endangering the lives and livelihoods of prostitute women. Feminist arguments against prostitution do have the capacity to reinforce the stigmatisation of sex workers, thus increasing prostitutes' vulnerability to violence and decreasing their ability to negotiate, on favourable terms, with clients, the owners of sex businesses, and public authorities. These sorts of problems - which are related to the effects of particular feminist discursive practices and theoretical positions - cannot be simply set aside as irrelevant or unimportant. They are also not 'solved' by feminist approaches which emphasise the need to refocus analysis on male clients and 'the problem of demand'. My third reason for suggesting the need for new approaches to prostitution is based on the general need for feminists to contest rather than confirm dominant cultural discourses about sexuality. In our culture sexual difference is usually talked about via notions of (men's) bodily integrity and (women's) bodily submission. Women's bodies are marked out as vulnerable, violable and possessable. In heterosexual intercourse, women's bodies are said to be 'entered' or 'penetrated' by men's bodies. Young women are said to 'lose' their virginity while prostitutes are seen to 'sell themselves'. This means that women are perceived to have a 'normal' lack of bodily integrity and, thus, bodily autonomy. In our culture and time this 'lack' is akin to a deficiency of selfhood (see Marcus 1992). All women are disempowered by these ways of thinking and talking about sexual difference. However, for some women - prostitutes and victims of sexual assault are an obvious example - these discourses are particularly burdensome. They mark out prostitutes and rape victims as particularly damaged and violated, as 'fallen' and shameful women who lack, lose or sell their bodily integrity (and, thus, themselves). Sharon Marcus has argued that rape can be both contested and prevented by attention to the discursive construction of 'rape scripts'. She points out that in our culture the most common ways of talking and thinking about rape, sexuality and gendered violence invite women to position themselves as endangered, violable and fearful; men are invited to position themselves as legitimately violent and entitled to women's sexual services (1992: 390). This language situates women as inherently rapable and structures the experience of rape for both male perpetrators (who feel empowered) and female victims (who feel violated, invaded and humiliated). This is what poststructuralist theorists like Marcus mean by the discursive construction of 'experience'; rape victims are subjected to real physical acts, but the cultural meaning assigned to these acts largely (but not completely) determines how they will be experienced and 'embodied' by women. Marcus proposes that feminist anti-rape strategies could usefully be focused on disrupting and eradicating rape scripts. This involves displacing the emphasis on what existing rape scripts promote - men's power and capacity to rape - and putting into discourse what is presently stultified and excluded, that is, women's will, agency, and capacity for violence. The idea is to transform dominant ways of talking about women, female sexuality and rape as a way of both preventing rape and transforming the destructive experience of rape for women. This sort of approach points to new feminist strategies in relation to prostitution. In our culture prostitutes are marked out as women who are bad, who sell themselves and are different from other women. I have already suggested that feminist arguments which stress the continuities between prostitution and other forms of sexual-economic exchange 'cut across' these dominant cultural discourses. I have also suggested that feminist positions which refuse this continuum approach and which posit both essentialist and universal accounts of prostitution fail to contest dominant cultural discourses about sexuality and prostitution. In conclusion, at a minimum, feminists need to refrain from making principled statements of opposition to prostitution. But this is unlikely to be enough. What we need are feminist accounts of prostitution which assert the will and agency of prostitutes, which emphasise their capacity to resist male violence, which refuse the notion that women sell themselves in prostitution, and which reconfigure prostitution transactions. This sort of discursive strategy would change the often destructive discourses which prostitute women are presently forced to embody. It would also change the experience of being a male client, challenging men to embody new forms of sexuality. This sort of discursive strategy would also contribute to a broader feminist project which is addressed to the reconfiguration of 'normal' ways of talking about women, sexual difference and sexuality. It sort of makes you think about Ian being "the violator".
Posted by Betsie Beadling (Member # 591) on 07-31-2002, 08:32 AM:
WHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
What a Predicament
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 07-31-2002, 11:35 AM:
But what about male prostitutes and their clients? Hmmm? (Would they be called "Janes"? [Well, the female ones, anyway!])
Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 07-31-2002, 12:17 PM:
Ok, what am I missing!??
Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 07-31-2002, 12:24 PM:
"Prostitution enforcement is something of a revolving door anyway, sad to say, but the early releases speed it up."Pun intended or not?
------------------
Find me online
AOL: Dexter Caldwell
yahoo!: dexter_caldwell
"It is the opinion of the entire staff the Dexter is criminally insane."
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-31-2002, 02:23 PM:
quote:
Ok, what am I missing!??
I think they are either trying to write the longest paragraphs in history, or trying for the "most difficult post to read" award. I think it's tied so far...
Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 07-31-2002, 02:27 PM:
What I think you may be missing is the on going debate in Denver to publicly humiliate prostitutes by broadcasting thier photos on a local access station. Since the thread is called the "Violater" this could be the reason this topic made it into this particular forum as teh prostitues would be "Violating" a city ordinace prohibiting the solicitation for sex. That would be my guess. I only know a little bit about it since it was the topic on one of the morning radio talk shows a couple of weeks ago. When I have enough time I would like to see what Joe and Brad have written because I am sure there are alot of good points expressed in the posts by both individuals.
Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 07-31-2002, 02:29 PM:
I hope they are not trying to imply that I am long winded.
Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 07-31-2002, 10:20 PM:
Im just curious as why brad and joe know so much about prostitutes... j/k
Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 08-01-2002, 12:01 AM:
You guys really do have too much time on your hands.JJ
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"Film is made of silver, video is made of rust"
'nuf said
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-01-2002, 01:08 AM:
All I know is here in Lawton, we have hoes-a-plenty. Trouble is, anyone willing to pay cash-on-the-barrelhead for a poke at one of those skeezers should be locked away in a nuthouse for the criminally insane.There is an elementary school just down the street from my house, but the trouble is hooker-central is just a block to the north. Shit, I'm afraid to go to the Phillips 66 to get a tall fountain soda out of fear of running into some of the weirdos that hang out north of Cache Road. The worst thing that really creeps me out that some "john" may miss a visit with his favorite hooker and decide to move on to a 3rd grader at the playground just down my street. I've got something he can play with: high speed buck shot fired at the molester's face at near 1000 feet per second.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-01-2002, 03:58 AM:
Brad, you just don't seem to be able to grasp this concept clearly at all. Surely you must know that both prostitutes and their johns will do everything they can to avoid this situation. In fact, at least one "John" in Denver has his nose out of joint over the name Johns TV, the new Denver cable TV show that "exposes" convicted clients of prostitutes. "I got two e-mails from Johns joking about the name, and one that was genuinely miffed that we were calling it Johns TV," said mayoral mouthpiece Andrew Hudson. "We didn't consider other names." When you consider the names of similar shows airing in the United States and Canada, Johns TV seems downright timid (at least if your name isn't John). In Calgary, Alberta, it's the Calgary Ho Down. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it's the Saskatoon Ho Train. Parkdale, Ontario, calls it John's Hall of Fame. In Toronto, it's The Toronto Roundup. Orlando, Fla., calls it Busted! TV. Vancouver, British Columbia, calls its Web site Dear John. And in Charlotte, N.C., it's Shame TV. But John or Johns TV was the overwhelming favorite here, Hudson said. "I suppose if John Hickenlooper runs for mayor, he can't have a show called Johns TV," Hudson said. "We've cornered that one." Johns TV airs at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily on Channel 8 and on the website beginning today. The show moves up an hour to 6 p.m. on Mondays due to the live broadcast of the Denver City Council meetings. And goodness knows you wouldn't want to mix up those two shows. There's technical school, there's parochial school - and now there's Johns School. That's John as in those who patronize prostitutes. Under a new policy announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, arrested johns will get to choose between attending a class on the evils of prostitution or facing 90 days in jail. "Pimps and prostitutes are only two-thirds of the age-old crime; the remaining one-third is the john," Hynes said. "Johns School will not only educate offenders but remind them that, as an equal part, they are in fact committing a crime." Under the program, offenders will be taught the health risks of prostitution, the adverse effect on the quality of life within the community and the negative impact on the prostitutes themselves. The five-hour course will be taught by assistant district attorneys, former prostitutes, health professionals, police officers, social workers and community leaders. Previously, johns were given community service or had their cases dismissed with time served. Defendants with violent criminal records will not be offered the class. "We want our Johns TV." OK, so it doesn't have quite the ring of the MTV slogan. But "Johns TV" is what Denver Mayor Wellington Webb calls a new offensive against prostitution. During his State of the City address Monday, Webb announced the city soon will be showing pictures of prostitutes and their customers on the city's TV channel and its Web site. "If we can't convict you to get you to change your ways, maybe we can embarrass you and get you to change your ways," Webb said to a round of applause. Webb said he's heard from members of the Unsinkables Inc., a Capitol Hill neighborhood group named after Denver's Molly Brown, who are concerned with prostitution on East Colfax Avenue. Denver police also have increased patrols and weekly stings, and have arrested hundreds of suspected hookers and clients in the past year. But that's not enough, Webb said. So starting July 25, the faces of convicted prostitutes and their customers will be broadcast on Denver Channel 8 twice a day, seven days a week. The images also will appear on the denvergov.org Web site. In addition, the city attorney's office will continue its policy of not accepting plea bargains for people accused of prostitution, the mayor said. Webb urged prostitutes to move their, um, business interests to a "friendlier community," away from Denver. That suggestion also got a round of applause. Kathi Anderson logged on to the city of Denver's Web site Thursday and looked at the photos of nine men convicted of soliciting prostitutes. She's seen their kind before. And she says it's just fine that others now are seeing them, too. In her walks as president of the Untouchables, a neighborhood group devoted to improving life on Capitol Hill, Anderson and her colleagues have run into plenty of the women plying the sex trade along East Colfax Avenue. Mostly, she feels sorry for them and considers them victims. Their customers are another matter. "I don't look at the Johns as victims at all," she said on the day Denver began publicizing the men caught in police prostitution stings. "Their families maybe. I don't think anyone wants to bring shame to their families. But they (the Johns) did." Neighbors who have been fighting prostitution along the Colfax corridor generally praised the city's initiative. At Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, associate director Sebastian Metz said the group has not taken a position on the so-called Johns TV. But CHUN does support Mayor Wellington Webb's orders to increase police enforcement and criminal penalties against prostitution. "We're supportive of anything that discourages prostitution," Metz said. "This is something that's an unproven method. If it gets results, we'll applaud. If it doesn't, we'll continue to press for the other things." Pamela Corvelli planned to watch the Johns TV show on Denver's Channel 8 Thursday night. "I've worked so hard for this, so I definitely want to see it," said Corvelli,an activist in the South City Park neighborhood. Like Anderson, Corvelli said she feels some sympathy for the prostitutes. She agreed with the city's decision not to include their photographs in either the Web site or television program. "I don't want them to be further victimized, which I feel that would do," she said. Mostly, she just wants them and the problems associated with prostitution out of her neighborhood. She said some of the women have been making enough money to operate out of apartments they have rented. "There's a reason they call this the oldest profession," Corvelli said. "We're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least squeeze it out to Lakewood. Meet Dorothy, Denver prostitute. You won't see her on Johns TV, but you almost did. Earlier this week, Mayor Wellington Webb decided against putting prostitutes' pictures on the show, saying he felt that embarrassing their customers would be effective by itself in curbing street sex. Dorothy is glad about that. Seeing the women's pictures on television and the Internet would "ruin any chance of disabled people getting another chance in life," she says. And chances don't come easy for someone like Dorothy. She says she's mentally ill, has epilepsy, lives on Social Security and will be 50 years old in a couple of weeks. She wears sweat pants, T-shirts and tennis shoes. She says she has no family in Denver, that she was abandoned by her second husband who brought her here from Pennsylvania years ago. Her three children, she says, died in a fire. Asked why she was arrested this month for prostitution, she has a simple answer. "I was hungry." She went out about 5 one evening this month, hoping to make $20, doing "whatever he would have wanted." But she didn't know that the man who picked her up on the corner of Milwaukee Street and Colfax Avenue was a police officer. He asked her if she wanted a date and she said she just wanted a ride. "Don't you want to do anything else?" Dorothy quoted the man as asking. "Don't you want to go to City Park with me?" She went to City Park, then to jail. It was, she says, her fifth solicitation conviction. If she's caught again, she'll spend a year in jail, she says. Still, Dorothy feels she caught a break in this last arrest. "I was very fortunate," she says. "I didn't get the lady judge." She also felt fortunate on Thursday, when she was given a little hope wrapped up in a new home. She was moving from her flophouse apartment to federally subsidized housing downtown, which would be much cheaper and much cleaner. Dorothy was concerned that her name might be in the newspaper, but she thought speaking up might be helpful to people who don't have any idea why a woman would prostitute herself. "They're out there because they're hungry. They're out there because they're homeless. They're out there because they have mental problems," she says. "If they get a home once a week and a bath once a week, they're lucky." At least one "John" in Denver has his nose out of joint over the name Johns TV, the new Denver cable TV show that "exposes" convicted clients of prostitutes. "I got two e-mails from Johns joking about the name, and one that was genuinely miffed that we were calling it Johns TV," said mayoral mouthpiece Andrew Hudson. "We didn't consider other names." When you consider the names of similar shows airing in the United States and Canada, Johns TV seems downright timid (at least if your name isn't John). In Calgary, Alberta, it's the Calgary Ho Down. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it's the Saskatoon Ho Train. Parkdale, Ontario, calls it John's Hall of Fame. In Toronto, it's The Toronto Roundup. Orlando, Fla., calls it Busted! TV. Vancouver, British Columbia, calls its Web site Dear John. And in Charlotte, N.C., it's Shame TV. But John or Johns TV was the overwhelming favorite here, Hudson said. "I suppose if John Hickenlooper runs for mayor, he can't have a show called Johns TV," Hudson said. "We've cornered that one." Johns TV airs at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily on Channel 8 and on the website beginning today. The show moves up an hour to 6 p.m. on Mondays due to the live broadcast of the Denver City Council meetings. And goodness knows you wouldn't want to mix up those two shows. There's technical school, there's parochial school - and now there's Johns School. That's John as in those who patronize prostitutes. Under a new policy announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, arrested johns will get to choose between attending a class on the evils of prostitution or facing 90 days in jail. "Pimps and prostitutes are only two-thirds of the age-old crime; the remaining one-third is the john," Hynes said. "Johns School will not only educate offenders but remind them that, as an equal part, they are in fact committing a crime." Under the program, offenders will be taught the health risks of prostitution, the adverse effect on the quality of life within the community and the negative impact on the prostitutes themselves. The five-hour course will be taught by assistant district attorneys, former prostitutes, health professionals, police officers, social workers and community leaders. Previously, johns were given community service or had their cases dismissed with time served. Defendants with violent criminal records will not be offered the class. "We want our Johns TV." OK, so it doesn't have quite the ring of the MTV slogan. But "Johns TV" is what Denver Mayor Wellington Webb calls a new offensive against prostitution. During his State of the City address Monday, Webb announced the city soon will be showing pictures of prostitutes and their customers on the city's TV channel and its Web site. "If we can't convict you to get you to change your ways, maybe we can embarrass you and get you to change your ways," Webb said to a round of applause. Webb said he's heard from members of the Unsinkables Inc., a Capitol Hill neighborhood group named after Denver's Molly Brown, who are concerned with prostitution on East Colfax Avenue. Denver police also have increased patrols and weekly stings, and have arrested hundreds of suspected hookers and clients in the past year. But that's not enough, Webb said. So starting July 25, the faces of convicted prostitutes and their customers will be broadcast on Denver Channel 8 twice a day, seven days a week. The images also will appear on the denvergov.org Web site. In addition, the city attorney's office will continue its policy of not accepting plea bargains for people accused of prostitution, the mayor said. Webb urged prostitutes to move their, um, business interests to a "friendlier community," away from Denver. That suggestion also got a round of applause. Kathi Anderson logged on to the city of Denver's Web site Thursday and looked at the photos of nine men convicted of soliciting prostitutes. She's seen their kind before. And she says it's just fine that others now are seeing them, too. In her walks as president of the Untouchables, a neighborhood group devoted to improving life on Capitol Hill, Anderson and her colleagues have run into plenty of the women plying the sex trade along East Colfax Avenue. Mostly, she feels sorry for them and considers them victims. Their customers are another matter. "I don't look at the Johns as victims at all," she said on the day Denver began publicizing the men caught in police prostitution stings. "Their families maybe. I don't think anyone wants to bring shame to their families. But they (the Johns) did." Neighbors who have been fighting prostitution along the Colfax corridor generally praised the city's initiative. At Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, associate director Sebastian Metz said the group has not taken a position on the so-called Johns TV. But CHUN does support Mayor Wellington Webb's orders to increase police enforcement and criminal penalties against prostitution. "We're supportive of anything that discourages prostitution," Metz said. "This is something that's an unproven method. If it gets results, we'll applaud. If it doesn't, we'll continue to press for the other things." Pamela Corvelli planned to watch the Johns TV show on Denver's Channel 8 Thursday night. "I've worked so hard for this, so I definitely want to see it," said Corvelli,an activist in the South City Park neighborhood. Like Anderson, Corvelli said she feels some sympathy for the prostitutes. She agreed with the city's decision not to include their photographs in either the Web site or television program. "I don't want them to be further victimized, which I feel that would do," she said. Mostly, she just wants them and the problems associated with prostitution out of her neighborhood. She said some of the women have been making enough money to operate out of apartments they have rented. "There's a reason they call this the oldest profession," Corvelli said. "We're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least squeeze it out to Lakewood. Meet Dorothy, Denver prostitute. You won't see her on Johns TV, but you almost did. Earlier this week, Mayor Wellington Webb decided against putting prostitutes' pictures on the show, saying he felt that embarrassing their customers would be effective by itself in curbing street sex. Dorothy is glad about that. Seeing the women's pictures on television and the Internet would "ruin any chance of disabled people getting another chance in life," she says. And chances don't come easy for someone like Dorothy. She says she's mentally ill, has epilepsy, lives on Social Security and will be 50 years old in a couple of weeks. She wears sweat pants, T-shirts and tennis shoes. She says she has no family in Denver, that she was abandoned by her second husband who brought her here from Pennsylvania years ago. Her three children, she says, died in a fire. Asked why she was arrested this month for prostitution, she has a simple answer. "I was hungry." She went out about 5 one evening this month, hoping to make $20, doing "whatever he would have wanted." But she didn't know that the man who picked her up on the corner of Milwaukee Street and Colfax Avenue was a police officer. He asked her if she wanted a date and she said she just wanted a ride. "Don't you want to do anything else?" Dorothy quoted the man as asking. "Don't you want to go to City Park with me?" She went to City Park, then to jail. It was, she says, her fifth solicitation conviction. If she's caught again, she'll spend a year in jail, she says. Still, Dorothy feels she caught a break in this last arrest. "I was very fortunate," she says. "I didn't get the lady judge." She also felt fortunate on Thursday, when she was given a little hope wrapped up in a new home. She was moving from her flophouse apartment to federally subsidized housing downtown, which would be much cheaper and much cleaner. Dorothy was concerned that her name might be in the newspaper, but she thought speaking up might be helpful to people who don't have any idea why a woman would prostitute herself. "They're out there because they're hungry. They're out there because they're homeless. They're out there because they have mental problems," she says. "If they get a home once a week and a bath once a week, they're lucky." At least one "John" in Denver has his nose out of joint over the name Johns TV, the new Denver cable TV show that "exposes" convicted clients of prostitutes. "I got two e-mails from Johns joking about the name, and one that was genuinely miffed that we were calling it Johns TV," said mayoral mouthpiece Andrew Hudson. "We didn't consider other names." When you consider the names of similar shows airing in the United States and Canada, Johns TV seems downright timid (at least if your name isn't John). In Calgary, Alberta, it's the Calgary Ho Down. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it's the Saskatoon Ho Train. Parkdale, Ontario, calls it John's Hall of Fame. In Toronto, it's The Toronto Roundup. Orlando, Fla., calls it Busted! TV. Vancouver, British Columbia, calls its Web site Dear John. And in Charlotte, N.C., it's Shame TV. But John or Johns TV was the overwhelming favorite here, Hudson said. "I suppose if John Hickenlooper runs for mayor, he can't have a show called Johns TV," Hudson said. "We've cornered that one." Johns TV airs at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily on Channel 8 and on the website beginning today. The show moves up an hour to 6 p.m. on Mondays due to the live broadcast of the Denver City Council meetings. And goodness knows you wouldn't want to mix up those two shows. There's technical school, there's parochial school - and now there's Johns School. That's John as in those who patronize prostitutes. Under a new policy announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, arrested johns will get to choose between attending a class on the evils of prostitution or facing 90 days in jail. "Pimps and prostitutes are only two-thirds of the age-old crime; the remaining one-third is the john," Hynes said. "Johns School will not only educate offenders but remind them that, as an equal part, they are in fact committing a crime." Under the program, offenders will be taught the health risks of prostitution, the adverse effect on the quality of life within the community and the negative impact on the prostitutes themselves. The five-hour course will be taught by assistant district attorneys, former prostitutes, health professionals, police officers, social workers and community leaders. Previously, johns were given community service or had their cases dismissed with time served. Defendants with violent criminal records will not be offered the class. "We want our Johns TV." OK, so it doesn't have quite the ring of the MTV slogan. But "Johns TV" is what Denver Mayor Wellington Webb calls a new offensive against prostitution. During his State of the City address Monday, Webb announced the city soon will be showing pictures of prostitutes and their customers on the city's TV channel and its Web site. "If we can't convict you to get you to change your ways, maybe we can embarrass you and get you to change your ways," Webb said to a round of applause. Webb said he's heard from members of the Unsinkables Inc., a Capitol Hill neighborhood group named after Denver's Molly Brown, who are concerned with prostitution on East Colfax Avenue. Denver police also have increased patrols and weekly stings, and have arrested hundreds of suspected hookers and clients in the past year. But that's not enough, Webb said. So starting July 25, the faces of convicted prostitutes and their customers will be broadcast on Denver Channel 8 twice a day, seven days a week. The images also will appear on the denvergov.org Web site. In addition, the city attorney's office will continue its policy of not accepting plea bargains for people accused of prostitution, the mayor said. Webb urged prostitutes to move their, um, business interests to a "friendlier community," away from Denver. That suggestion also got a round of applause. Kathi Anderson logged on to the city of Denver's Web site Thursday and looked at the photos of nine men convicted of soliciting prostitutes. She's seen their kind before. And she says it's just fine that others now are seeing them, too. In her walks as president of the Untouchables, a neighborhood group devoted to improving life on Capitol Hill, Anderson and her colleagues have run into plenty of the women plying the sex trade along East Colfax Avenue. Mostly, she feels sorry for them and considers them victims. Their customers are another matter. "I don't look at the Johns as victims at all," she said on the day Denver began publicizing the men caught in police prostitution stings. "Their families maybe. I don't think anyone wants to bring shame to their families. But they (the Johns) did." Neighbors who have been fighting prostitution along the Colfax corridor generally praised the city's initiative. At Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, associate director Sebastian Metz said the group has not taken a position on the so-called Johns TV. But CHUN does support Mayor Wellington Webb's orders to increase police enforcement and criminal penalties against prostitution. "We're supportive of anything that discourages prostitution," Metz said. "This is something that's an unproven method. If it gets results, we'll applaud. If it doesn't, we'll continue to press for the other things." Pamela Corvelli planned to watch the Johns TV show on Denver's Channel 8 Thursday night. "I've worked so hard for this, so I definitely want to see it," said Corvelli,an activist in the South City Park neighborhood. Like Anderson, Corvelli said she feels some sympathy for the prostitutes. She agreed with the city's decision not to include their photographs in either the Web site or television program. "I don't want them to be further victimized, which I feel that would do," she said. Mostly, she just wants them and the problems associated with prostitution out of her neighborhood. She said some of the women have been making enough money to operate out of apartments they have rented. "There's a reason they call this the oldest profession," Corvelli said. "We're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least squeeze it out to Lakewood. Meet Dorothy, Denver prostitute. You won't see her on Johns TV, but you almost did. Earlier this week, Mayor Wellington Webb decided against putting prostitutes' pictures on the show, saying he felt that embarrassing their customers would be effective by itself in curbing street sex. Dorothy is glad about that. Seeing the women's pictures on television and the Internet would "ruin any chance of disabled people getting another chance in life," she says. And chances don't come easy for someone like Dorothy. She says she's mentally ill, has epilepsy, lives on Social Security and will be 50 years old in a couple of weeks. She wears sweat pants, T-shirts and tennis shoes. She says she has no family in Denver, that she was abandoned by her second husband who brought her here from Pennsylvania years ago. Her three children, she says, died in a fire. Asked why she was arrested this month for prostitution, she has a simple answer. "I was hungry." She went out about 5 one evening this month, hoping to make $20, doing "whatever he would have wanted." But she didn't know that the man who picked her up on the corner of Milwaukee Street and Colfax Avenue was a police officer. He asked her if she wanted a date and she said she just wanted a ride. "Don't you want to do anything else?" Dorothy quoted the man as asking. "Don't you want to go to City Park with me?" She went to City Park, then to jail. It was, she says, her fifth solicitation conviction. If she's caught again, she'll spend a year in jail, she says. Still, Dorothy feels she caught a break in this last arrest. "I was very fortunate," she says. "I didn't get the lady judge." She also felt fortunate on Thursday, when she was given a little hope wrapped up in a new home. She was moving from her flophouse apartment to federally subsidized housing downtown, which would be much cheaper and much cleaner. Dorothy was concerned that her name might be in the newspaper, but she thought speaking up might be helpful to people who don't have any idea why a woman would prostitute herself. "They're out there because they're hungry. They're out there because they're homeless. They're out there because they have mental problems," she says. "If they get a home once a week and a bath once a week, they're lucky." It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue.It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue.It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue. Hopefully this is able to clear things up a bit for you, and you are able to finally discover the way things really are here in Denver. It seems pretty black and white to me, so I am not sure why you keep missing my point entirely. Surely your efforts to understand this situation will reward you with the ability to see it all clearly. In fact, at least one "John" in Denver has his nose out of joint over the name Johns TV, the new Denver cable TV show that "exposes" convicted clients of prostitutes. "I got two e-mails from Johns joking about the name, and one that was genuinely miffed that we were calling it Johns TV," said mayoral mouthpiece Andrew Hudson. "We didn't consider other names." When you consider the names of similar shows airing in the United States and Canada, Johns TV seems downright timid (at least if your name isn't John). In Calgary, Alberta, it's the Calgary Ho Down. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it's the Saskatoon Ho Train. Parkdale, Ontario, calls it John's Hall of Fame. In Toronto, it's The Toronto Roundup. Orlando, Fla., calls it Busted! TV. Vancouver, British Columbia, calls its Web site Dear John. And in Charlotte, N.C., it's Shame TV. But John or Johns TV was the overwhelming favorite here, Hudson said. "I suppose if John Hickenlooper runs for mayor, he can't have a show called Johns TV," Hudson said. "We've cornered that one." Johns TV airs at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily on Channel 8 and on the website beginning today. The show moves up an hour to 6 p.m. on Mondays due to the live broadcast of the Denver City Council meetings. And goodness knows you wouldn't want to mix up those two shows. There's technical school, there's parochial school - and now there's Johns School. That's John as in those who patronize prostitutes. Under a new policy announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, arrested johns will get to choose between attending a class on the evils of prostitution or facing 90 days in jail. "Pimps and prostitutes are only two-thirds of the age-old crime; the remaining one-third is the john," Hynes said. "Johns School will not only educate offenders but remind them that, as an equal part, they are in fact committing a crime." Under the program, offenders will be taught the health risks of prostitution, the adverse effect on the quality of life within the community and the negative impact on the prostitutes themselves. The five-hour course will be taught by assistant district attorneys, former prostitutes, health professionals, police officers, social workers and community leaders. Previously, johns were given community service or had their cases dismissed with time served. Defendants with violent criminal records will not be offered the class. "We want our Johns TV." OK, so it doesn't have quite the ring of the MTV slogan. But "Johns TV" is what Denver Mayor Wellington Webb calls a new offensive against prostitution. During his State of the City address Monday, Webb announced the city soon will be showing pictures of prostitutes and their customers on the city's TV channel and its Web site. "If we can't convict you to get you to change your ways, maybe we can embarrass you and get you to change your ways," Webb said to a round of applause. Webb said he's heard from members of the Unsinkables Inc., a Capitol Hill neighborhood group named after Denver's Molly Brown, who are concerned with prostitution on East Colfax Avenue. Denver police also have increased patrols and weekly stings, and have arrested hundreds of suspected hookers and clients in the past year. But that's not enough, Webb said. So starting July 25, the faces of convicted prostitutes and their customers will be broadcast on Denver Channel 8 twice a day, seven days a week. The images also will appear on the denvergov.org Web site. In addition, the city attorney's office will continue its policy of not accepting plea bargains for people accused of prostitution, the mayor said. Webb urged prostitutes to move their, um, business interests to a "friendlier community," away from Denver. That suggestion also got a round of applause. Kathi Anderson logged on to the city of Denver's Web site Thursday and looked at the photos of nine men convicted of soliciting prostitutes. She's seen their kind before. And she says it's just fine that others now are seeing them, too. In her walks as president of the Untouchables, a neighborhood group devoted to improving life on Capitol Hill, Anderson and her colleagues have run into plenty of the women plying the sex trade along East Colfax Avenue. Mostly, she feels sorry for them and considers them victims. Their customers are another matter. "I don't look at the Johns as victims at all," she said on the day Denver began publicizing the men caught in police prostitution stings. "Their families maybe. I don't think anyone wants to bring shame to their families. But they (the Johns) did." Neighbors who have been fighting prostitution along the Colfax corridor generally praised the city's initiative. At Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, associate director Sebastian Metz said the group has not taken a position on the so-called Johns TV. But CHUN does support Mayor Wellington Webb's orders to increase police enforcement and criminal penalties against prostitution. "We're supportive of anything that discourages prostitution," Metz said. "This is something that's an unproven method. If it gets results, we'll applaud. If it doesn't, we'll continue to press for the other things." Pamela Corvelli planned to watch the Johns TV show on Denver's Channel 8 Thursday night. "I've worked so hard for this, so I definitely want to see it," said Corvelli,an activist in the South City Park neighborhood. Like Anderson, Corvelli said she feels some sympathy for the prostitutes. She agreed with the city's decision not to include their photographs in either the Web site or television program. "I don't want them to be further victimized, which I feel that would do," she said. Mostly, she just wants them and the problems associated with prostitution out of her neighborhood. She said some of the women have been making enough money to operate out of apartments they have rented. "There's a reason they call this the oldest profession," Corvelli said. "We're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least squeeze it out to Lakewood. Meet Dorothy, Denver prostitute. You won't see her on Johns TV, but you almost did. Earlier this week, Mayor Wellington Webb decided against putting prostitutes' pictures on the show, saying he felt that embarrassing their customers would be effective by itself in curbing street sex. Dorothy is glad about that. Seeing the women's pictures on television and the Internet would "ruin any chance of disabled people getting another chance in life," she says. And chances don't come easy for someone like Dorothy. She says she's mentally ill, has epilepsy, lives on Social Security and will be 50 years old in a couple of weeks. She wears sweat pants, T-shirts and tennis shoes. She says she has no family in Denver, that she was abandoned by her second husband who brought her here from Pennsylvania years ago. Her three children, she says, died in a fire. Asked why she was arrested this month for prostitution, she has a simple answer. "I was hungry." She went out about 5 one evening this month, hoping to make $20, doing "whatever he would have wanted." But she didn't know that the man who picked her up on the corner of Milwaukee Street and Colfax Avenue was a police officer. He asked her if she wanted a date and she said she just wanted a ride. "Don't you want to do anything else?" Dorothy quoted the man as asking. "Don't you want to go to City Park with me?" She went to City Park, then to jail. It was, she says, her fifth solicitation conviction. If she's caught again, she'll spend a year in jail, she says. Still, Dorothy feels she caught a break in this last arrest. "I was very fortunate," she says. "I didn't get the lady judge." She also felt fortunate on Thursday, when she was given a little hope wrapped up in a new home. She was moving from her flophouse apartment to federally subsidized housing downtown, which would be much cheaper and much cleaner. Dorothy was concerned that her name might be in the newspaper, but she thought speaking up might be helpful to people who don't have any idea why a woman would prostitute herself. "They're out there because they're hungry. They're out there because they're homeless. They're out there because they have mental problems," she says. "If they get a home once a week and a bath once a week, they're lucky." At least one "John" in Denver has his nose out of joint over the name Johns TV, the new Denver cable TV show that "exposes" convicted clients of prostitutes. "I got two e-mails from Johns joking about the name, and one that was genuinely miffed that we were calling it Johns TV," said mayoral mouthpiece Andrew Hudson. "We didn't consider other names." When you consider the names of similar shows airing in the United States and Canada, Johns TV seems downright timid (at least if your name isn't John). In Calgary, Alberta, it's the Calgary Ho Down. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it's the Saskatoon Ho Train. Parkdale, Ontario, calls it John's Hall of Fame. In Toronto, it's The Toronto Roundup. Orlando, Fla., calls it Busted! TV. Vancouver, British Columbia, calls its Web site Dear John. And in Charlotte, N.C., it's Shame TV. But John or Johns TV was the overwhelming favorite here, Hudson said. "I suppose if John Hickenlooper runs for mayor, he can't have a show called Johns TV," Hudson said. "We've cornered that one." Johns TV airs at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily on Channel 8 and on the website beginning today. The show moves up an hour to 6 p.m. on Mondays due to the live broadcast of the Denver City Council meetings. And goodness knows you wouldn't want to mix up those two shows. There's technical school, there's parochial school - and now there's Johns School. That's John as in those who patronize prostitutes. Under a new policy announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, arrested johns will get to choose between attending a class on the evils of prostitution or facing 90 days in jail. "Pimps and prostitutes are only two-thirds of the age-old crime; the remaining one-third is the john," Hynes said. "Johns School will not only educate offenders but remind them that, as an equal part, they are in fact committing a crime." Under the program, offenders will be taught the health risks of prostitution, the adverse effect on the quality of life within the community and the negative impact on the prostitutes themselves. The five-hour course will be taught by assistant district attorneys, former prostitutes, health professionals, police officers, social workers and community leaders. Previously, johns were given community service or had their cases dismissed with time served. Defendants with violent criminal records will not be offered the class. "We want our Johns TV." OK, so it doesn't have quite the ring of the MTV slogan. But "Johns TV" is what Denver Mayor Wellington Webb calls a new offensive against prostitution. During his State of the City address Monday, Webb announced the city soon will be showing pictures of prostitutes and their customers on the city's TV channel and its Web site. "If we can't convict you to get you to change your ways, maybe we can embarrass you and get you to change your ways," Webb said to a round of applause. Webb said he's heard from members of the Unsinkables Inc., a Capitol Hill neighborhood group named after Denver's Molly Brown, who are concerned with prostitution on East Colfax Avenue. Denver police also have increased patrols and weekly stings, and have arrested hundreds of suspected hookers and clients in the past year. But that's not enough, Webb said. So starting July 25, the faces of convicted prostitutes and their customers will be broadcast on Denver Channel 8 twice a day, seven days a week. The images also will appear on the denvergov.org Web site. In addition, the city attorney's office will continue its policy of not accepting plea bargains for people accused of prostitution, the mayor said. Webb urged prostitutes to move their, um, business interests to a "friendlier community," away from Denver. That suggestion also got a round of applause. Kathi Anderson logged on to the city of Denver's Web site Thursday and looked at the photos of nine men convicted of soliciting prostitutes. She's seen their kind before. And she says it's just fine that others now are seeing them, too. In her walks as president of the Untouchables, a neighborhood group devoted to improving life on Capitol Hill, Anderson and her colleagues have run into plenty of the women plying the sex trade along East Colfax Avenue. Mostly, she feels sorry for them and considers them victims. Their customers are another matter. "I don't look at the Johns as victims at all," she said on the day Denver began publicizing the men caught in police prostitution stings. "Their families maybe. I don't think anyone wants to bring shame to their families. But they (the Johns) did." Neighbors who have been fighting prostitution along the Colfax corridor generally praised the city's initiative. At Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, associate director Sebastian Metz said the group has not taken a position on the so-called Johns TV. But CHUN does support Mayor Wellington Webb's orders to increase police enforcement and criminal penalties against prostitution. "We're supportive of anything that discourages prostitution," Metz said. "This is something that's an unproven method. If it gets results, we'll applaud. If it doesn't, we'll continue to press for the other things." Pamela Corvelli planned to watch the Johns TV show on Denver's Channel 8 Thursday night. "I've worked so hard for this, so I definitely want to see it," said Corvelli,an activist in the South City Park neighborhood. Like Anderson, Corvelli said she feels some sympathy for the prostitutes. She agreed with the city's decision not to include their photographs in either the Web site or television program. "I don't want them to be further victimized, which I feel that would do," she said. Mostly, she just wants them and the problems associated with prostitution out of her neighborhood. She said some of the women have been making enough money to operate out of apartments they have rented. "There's a reason they call this the oldest profession," Corvelli said. "We're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least squeeze it out to Lakewood. Meet Dorothy, Denver prostitute. You won't see her on Johns TV, but you almost did. Earlier this week, Mayor Wellington Webb decided against putting prostitutes' pictures on the show, saying he felt that embarrassing their customers would be effective by itself in curbing street sex. Dorothy is glad about that. Seeing the women's pictures on television and the Internet would "ruin any chance of disabled people getting another chance in life," she says. And chances don't come easy for someone like Dorothy. She says she's mentally ill, has epilepsy, lives on Social Security and will be 50 years old in a couple of weeks. She wears sweat pants, T-shirts and tennis shoes. She says she has no family in Denver, that she was abandoned by her second husband who brought her here from Pennsylvania years ago. Her three children, she says, died in a fire. Asked why she was arrested this month for prostitution, she has a simple answer. "I was hungry." She went out about 5 one evening this month, hoping to make $20, doing "whatever he would have wanted." But she didn't know that the man who picked her up on the corner of Milwaukee Street and Colfax Avenue was a police officer. He asked her if she wanted a date and she said she just wanted a ride. "Don't you want to do anything else?" Dorothy quoted the man as asking. "Don't you want to go to City Park with me?" She went to City Park, then to jail. It was, she says, her fifth solicitation conviction. If she's caught again, she'll spend a year in jail, she says. Still, Dorothy feels she caught a break in this last arrest. "I was very fortunate," she says. "I didn't get the lady judge." She also felt fortunate on Thursday, when she was given a little hope wrapped up in a new home. She was moving from her flophouse apartment to federally subsidized housing downtown, which would be much cheaper and much cleaner. Dorothy was concerned that her name might be in the newspaper, but she thought speaking up might be helpful to people who don't have any idea why a woman would prostitute herself. "They're out there because they're hungry. They're out there because they're homeless. They're out there because they have mental problems," she says. "If they get a home once a week and a bath once a week, they're lucky." At least one "John" in Denver has his nose out of joint over the name Johns TV, the new Denver cable TV show that "exposes" convicted clients of prostitutes. "I got two e-mails from Johns joking about the name, and one that was genuinely miffed that we were calling it Johns TV," said mayoral mouthpiece Andrew Hudson. "We didn't consider other names." When you consider the names of similar shows airing in the United States and Canada, Johns TV seems downright timid (at least if your name isn't John). In Calgary, Alberta, it's the Calgary Ho Down. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it's the Saskatoon Ho Train. Parkdale, Ontario, calls it John's Hall of Fame. In Toronto, it's The Toronto Roundup. Orlando, Fla., calls it Busted! TV. Vancouver, British Columbia, calls its Web site Dear John. And in Charlotte, N.C., it's Shame TV. But John or Johns TV was the overwhelming favorite here, Hudson said. "I suppose if John Hickenlooper runs for mayor, he can't have a show called Johns TV," Hudson said. "We've cornered that one." Johns TV airs at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily on Channel 8 and on the website beginning today. The show moves up an hour to 6 p.m. on Mondays due to the live broadcast of the Denver City Council meetings. And goodness knows you wouldn't want to mix up those two shows. There's technical school, there's parochial school - and now there's Johns School. That's John as in those who patronize prostitutes. Under a new policy announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, arrested johns will get to choose between attending a class on the evils of prostitution or facing 90 days in jail. "Pimps and prostitutes are only two-thirds of the age-old crime; the remaining one-third is the john," Hynes said. "Johns School will not only educate offenders but remind them that, as an equal part, they are in fact committing a crime." Under the program, offenders will be taught the health risks of prostitution, the adverse effect on the quality of life within the community and the negative impact on the prostitutes themselves. The five-hour course will be taught by assistant district attorneys, former prostitutes, health professionals, police officers, social workers and community leaders. Previously, johns were given community service or had their cases dismissed with time served. Defendants with violent criminal records will not be offered the class. "We want our Johns TV." OK, so it doesn't have quite the ring of the MTV slogan. But "Johns TV" is what Denver Mayor Wellington Webb calls a new offensive against prostitution. During his State of the City address Monday, Webb announced the city soon will be showing pictures of prostitutes and their customers on the city's TV channel and its Web site. "If we can't convict you to get you to change your ways, maybe we can embarrass you and get you to change your ways," Webb said to a round of applause. Webb said he's heard from members of the Unsinkables Inc., a Capitol Hill neighborhood group named after Denver's Molly Brown, who are concerned with prostitution on East Colfax Avenue. Denver police also have increased patrols and weekly stings, and have arrested hundreds of suspected hookers and clients in the past year. But that's not enough, Webb said. So starting July 25, the faces of convicted prostitutes and their customers will be broadcast on Denver Channel 8 twice a day, seven days a week. The images also will appear on the denvergov.org Web site. In addition, the city attorney's office will continue its policy of not accepting plea bargains for people accused of prostitution, the mayor said. Webb urged prostitutes to move their, um, business interests to a "friendlier community," away from Denver. That suggestion also got a round of applause. Kathi Anderson logged on to the city of Denver's Web site Thursday and looked at the photos of nine men convicted of soliciting prostitutes. She's seen their kind before. And she says it's just fine that others now are seeing them, too. In her walks as president of the Untouchables, a neighborhood group devoted to improving life on Capitol Hill, Anderson and her colleagues have run into plenty of the women plying the sex trade along East Colfax Avenue. Mostly, she feels sorry for them and considers them victims. Their customers are another matter. "I don't look at the Johns as victims at all," she said on the day Denver began publicizing the men caught in police prostitution stings. "Their families maybe. I don't think anyone wants to bring shame to their families. But they (the Johns) did." Neighbors who have been fighting prostitution along the Colfax corridor generally praised the city's initiative. At Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, associate director Sebastian Metz said the group has not taken a position on the so-called Johns TV. But CHUN does support Mayor Wellington Webb's orders to increase police enforcement and criminal penalties against prostitution. "We're supportive of anything that discourages prostitution," Metz said. "This is something that's an unproven method. If it gets results, we'll applaud. If it doesn't, we'll continue to press for the other things." Pamela Corvelli planned to watch the Johns TV show on Denver's Channel 8 Thursday night. "I've worked so hard for this, so I definitely want to see it," said Corvelli,an activist in the South City Park neighborhood. Like Anderson, Corvelli said she feels some sympathy for the prostitutes. She agreed with the city's decision not to include their photographs in either the Web site or television program. "I don't want them to be further victimized, which I feel that would do," she said. Mostly, she just wants them and the problems associated with prostitution out of her neighborhood. She said some of the women have been making enough money to operate out of apartments they have rented. "There's a reason they call this the oldest profession," Corvelli said. "We're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least squeeze it out to Lakewood. Meet Dorothy, Denver prostitute. You won't see her on Johns TV, but you almost did. Earlier this week, Mayor Wellington Webb decided against putting prostitutes' pictures on the show, saying he felt that embarrassing their customers would be effective by itself in curbing street sex. Dorothy is glad about that. Seeing the women's pictures on television and the Internet would "ruin any chance of disabled people getting another chance in life," she says. And chances don't come easy for someone like Dorothy. She says she's mentally ill, has epilepsy, lives on Social Security and will be 50 years old in a couple of weeks. She wears sweat pants, T-shirts and tennis shoes. She says she has no family in Denver, that she was abandoned by her second husband who brought her here from Pennsylvania years ago. Her three children, she says, died in a fire. Asked why she was arrested this month for prostitution, she has a simple answer. "I was hungry." She went out about 5 one evening this month, hoping to make $20, doing "whatever he would have wanted." But she didn't know that the man who picked her up on the corner of Milwaukee Street and Colfax Avenue was a police officer. He asked her if she wanted a date and she said she just wanted a ride. "Don't you want to do anything else?" Dorothy quoted the man as asking. "Don't you want to go to City Park with me?" She went to City Park, then to jail. It was, she says, her fifth solicitation conviction. If she's caught again, she'll spend a year in jail, she says. Still, Dorothy feels she caught a break in this last arrest. "I was very fortunate," she says. "I didn't get the lady judge." She also felt fortunate on Thursday, when she was given a little hope wrapped up in a new home. She was moving from her flophouse apartment to federally subsidized housing downtown, which would be much cheaper and much cleaner. Dorothy was concerned that her name might be in the newspaper, but she thought speaking up might be helpful to people who don't have any idea why a woman would prostitute herself. "They're out there because they're hungry. They're out there because they're homeless. They're out there because they have mental problems," she says. "If they get a home once a week and a bath once a week, they're lucky." It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue.It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue.It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue. Hopefully this is able to clear things up a bit for you, and you are able to finally discover the way things really are here in Denver. It seems pretty black and white to me, so I am not sure why you keep missing my point entirely. Surely your efforts to understand this situation will reward you with the ability to see it all clearly. In fact, at least one "John" in Denver has his nose out of joint over the name Johns TV, the new Denver cable TV show that "exposes" convicted clients of prostitutes. "I got two e-mails from Johns joking about the name, and one that was genuinely miffed that we were calling it Johns TV," said mayoral mouthpiece Andrew Hudson. "We didn't consider other names." When you consider the names of similar shows airing in the United States and Canada, Johns TV seems downright timid (at least if your name isn't John). In Calgary, Alberta, it's the Calgary Ho Down. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it's the Saskatoon Ho Train. Parkdale, Ontario, calls it John's Hall of Fame. In Toronto, it's The Toronto Roundup. Orlando, Fla., calls it Busted! TV. Vancouver, British Columbia, calls its Web site Dear John. And in Charlotte, N.C., it's Shame TV. But John or Johns TV was the overwhelming favorite here, Hudson said. "I suppose if John Hickenlooper runs for mayor, he can't have a show called Johns TV," Hudson said. "We've cornered that one." Johns TV airs at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily on Channel 8 and on the website beginning today. The show moves up an hour to 6 p.m. on Mondays due to the live broadcast of the Denver City Council meetings. And goodness knows you wouldn't want to mix up those two shows. There's technical school, there's parochial school - and now there's Johns School. That's John as in those who patronize prostitutes. Under a new policy announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, arrested johns will get to choose between attending a class on the evils of prostitution or facing 90 days in jail. "Pimps and prostitutes are only two-thirds of the age-old crime; the remaining one-third is the john," Hynes said. "Johns School will not only educate offenders but remind them that, as an equal part, they are in fact committing a crime." Under the program, offenders will be taught the health risks of prostitution, the adverse effect on the quality of life within the community and the negative impact on the prostitutes themselves. The five-hour course will be taught by assistant district attorneys, former prostitutes, health professionals, police officers, social workers and community leaders. Previously, johns were given community service or had their cases dismissed with time served. Defendants with violent criminal records will not be offered the class. "We want our Johns TV." OK, so it doesn't have quite the ring of the MTV slogan. But "Johns TV" is what Denver Mayor Wellington Webb calls a new offensive against prostitution. During his State of the City address Monday, Webb announced the city soon will be showing pictures of prostitutes and their customers on the city's TV channel and its Web site. "If we can't convict you to get you to change your ways, maybe we can embarrass you and get you to change your ways," Webb said to a round of applause. Webb said he's heard from members of the Unsinkables Inc., a Capitol Hill neighborhood group named after Denver's Molly Brown, who are concerned with prostitution on East Colfax Avenue. Denver police also have increased patrols and weekly stings, and have arrested hundreds of suspected hookers and clients in the past year. But that's not enough, Webb said. So starting July 25, the faces of convicted prostitutes and their customers will be broadcast on Denver Channel 8 twice a day, seven days a week. The images also will appear on the denvergov.org Web site. In addition, the city attorney's office will continue its policy of not accepting plea bargains for people accused of prostitution, the mayor said. Webb urged prostitutes to move their, um, business interests to a "friendlier community," away from Denver. That suggestion also got a round of applause. Kathi Anderson logged on to the city of Denver's Web site Thursday and looked at the photos of nine men convicted of soliciting prostitutes. She's seen their kind before. And she says it's just fine that others now are seeing them, too. In her walks as president of the Untouchables, a neighborhood group devoted to improving life on Capitol Hill, Anderson and her colleagues have run into plenty of the women plying the sex trade along East Colfax Avenue. Mostly, she feels sorry for them and considers them victims. Their customers are another matter. "I don't look at the Johns as victims at all," she said on the day Denver began publicizing the men caught in police prostitution stings. "Their families maybe. I don't think anyone wants to bring shame to their families. But they (the Johns) did." Neighbors who have been fighting prostitution along the Colfax corridor generally praised the city's initiative. At Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, associate director Sebastian Metz said the group has not taken a position on the so-called Johns TV. But CHUN does support Mayor Wellington Webb's orders to increase police enforcement and criminal penalties against prostitution. "We're supportive of anything that discourages prostitution," Metz said. "This is something that's an unproven method. If it gets results, we'll applaud. If it doesn't, we'll continue to press for the other things." Pamela Corvelli planned to watch the Johns TV show on Denver's Channel 8 Thursday night. "I've worked so hard for this, so I definitely want to see it," said Corvelli,an activist in the South City Park neighborhood. Like Anderson, Corvelli said she feels some sympathy for the prostitutes. She agreed with the city's decision not to include their photographs in either the Web site or television program. "I don't want them to be further victimized, which I feel that would do," she said. Mostly, she just wants them and the problems associated with prostitution out of her neighborhood. She said some of the women have been making enough money to operate out of apartments they have rented. "There's a reason they call this the oldest profession," Corvelli said. "We're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least squeeze it out to Lakewood. Meet Dorothy, Denver prostitute. You won't see her on Johns TV, but you almost did. Earlier this week, Mayor Wellington Webb decided against putting prostitutes' pictures on the show, saying he felt that embarrassing their customers would be effective by itself in curbing street sex. Dorothy is glad about that. Seeing the women's pictures on television and the Internet would "ruin any chance of disabled people getting another chance in life," she says. And chances don't come easy for someone like Dorothy. She says she's mentally ill, has epilepsy, lives on Social Security and will be 50 years old in a couple of weeks. She wears sweat pants, T-shirts and tennis shoes. She says she has no family in Denver, that she was abandoned by her second husband who brought her here from Pennsylvania years ago. Her three children, she says, died in a fire. Asked why she was arrested this month for prostitution, she has a simple answer. "I was hungry." She went out about 5 one evening this month, hoping to make $20, doing "whatever he would have wanted." But she didn't know that the man who picked her up on the corner of Milwaukee Street and Colfax Avenue was a police officer. He asked her if she wanted a date and she said she just wanted a ride. "Don't you want to do anything else?" Dorothy quoted the man as asking. "Don't you want to go to City Park with me?" She went to City Park, then to jail. It was, she says, her fifth solicitation conviction. If she's caught again, she'll spend a year in jail, she says. Still, Dorothy feels she caught a break in this last arrest. "I was very fortunate," she says. "I didn't get the lady judge." She also felt fortunate on Thursday, when she was given a little hope wrapped up in a new home. She was moving from her flophouse apartment to federally subsidized housing downtown, which would be much cheaper and much cleaner. Dorothy was concerned that her name might be in the newspaper, but she thought speaking up might be helpful to people who don't have any idea why a woman would prostitute herself. "They're out there because they're hungry. They're out there because they're homeless. They're out there because they have mental problems," she says. "If they get a home once a week and a bath once a week, they're lucky." At least one "John" in Denver has his nose out of joint over the name Johns TV, the new Denver cable TV show that "exposes" convicted clients of prostitutes. "I got two e-mails from Johns joking about the name, and one that was genuinely miffed that we were calling it Johns TV," said mayoral mouthpiece Andrew Hudson. "We didn't consider other names." When you consider the names of similar shows airing in the United States and Canada, Johns TV seems downright timid (at least if your name isn't John). In Calgary, Alberta, it's the Calgary Ho Down. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it's the Saskatoon Ho Train. Parkdale, Ontario, calls it John's Hall of Fame. In Toronto, it's The Toronto Roundup. Orlando, Fla., calls it Busted! TV. Vancouver, British Columbia, calls its Web site Dear John. And in Charlotte, N.C., it's Shame TV. But John or Johns TV was the overwhelming favorite here, Hudson said. "I suppose if John Hickenlooper runs for mayor, he can't have a show called Johns TV," Hudson said. "We've cornered that one." Johns TV airs at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily on Channel 8 and on the website beginning today. The show moves up an hour to 6 p.m. on Mondays due to the live broadcast of the Denver City Council meetings. And goodness knows you wouldn't want to mix up those two shows. There's technical school, there's parochial school - and now there's Johns School. That's John as in those who patronize prostitutes. Under a new policy announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, arrested johns will get to choose between attending a class on the evils of prostitution or facing 90 days in jail. "Pimps and prostitutes are only two-thirds of the age-old crime; the remaining one-third is the john," Hynes said. "Johns School will not only educate offenders but remind them that, as an equal part, they are in fact committing a crime." Under the program, offenders will be taught the health risks of prostitution, the adverse effect on the quality of life within the community and the negative impact on the prostitutes themselves. The five-hour course will be taught by assistant district attorneys, former prostitutes, health professionals, police officers, social workers and community leaders. Previously, johns were given community service or had their cases dismissed with time served. Defendants with violent criminal records will not be offered the class. "We want our Johns TV." OK, so it doesn't have quite the ring of the MTV slogan. But "Johns TV" is what Denver Mayor Wellington Webb calls a new offensive against prostitution. During his State of the City address Monday, Webb announced the city soon will be showing pictures of prostitutes and their customers on the city's TV channel and its Web site. "If we can't convict you to get you to change your ways, maybe we can embarrass you and get you to change your ways," Webb said to a round of applause. Webb said he's heard from members of the Unsinkables Inc., a Capitol Hill neighborhood group named after Denver's Molly Brown, who are concerned with prostitution on East Colfax Avenue. Denver police also have increased patrols and weekly stings, and have arrested hundreds of suspected hookers and clients in the past year. But that's not enough, Webb said. So starting July 25, the faces of convicted prostitutes and their customers will be broadcast on Denver Channel 8 twice a day, seven days a week. The images also will appear on the denvergov.org Web site. In addition, the city attorney's office will continue its policy of not accepting plea bargains for people accused of prostitution, the mayor said. Webb urged prostitutes to move their, um, business interests to a "friendlier community," away from Denver. That suggestion also got a round of applause. Kathi Anderson logged on to the city of Denver's Web site Thursday and looked at the photos of nine men convicted of soliciting prostitutes. She's seen their kind before. And she says it's just fine that others now are seeing them, too. In her walks as president of the Untouchables, a neighborhood group devoted to improving life on Capitol Hill, Anderson and her colleagues have run into plenty of the women plying the sex trade along East Colfax Avenue. Mostly, she feels sorry for them and considers them victims. Their customers are another matter. "I don't look at the Johns as victims at all," she said on the day Denver began publicizing the men caught in police prostitution stings. "Their families maybe. I don't think anyone wants to bring shame to their families. But they (the Johns) did." Neighbors who have been fighting prostitution along the Colfax corridor generally praised the city's initiative. At Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, associate director Sebastian Metz said the group has not taken a position on the so-called Johns TV. But CHUN does support Mayor Wellington Webb's orders to increase police enforcement and criminal penalties against prostitution. "We're supportive of anything that discourages prostitution," Metz said. "This is something that's an unproven method. If it gets results, we'll applaud. If it doesn't, we'll continue to press for the other things." Pamela Corvelli planned to watch the Johns TV show on Denver's Channel 8 Thursday night. "I've worked so hard for this, so I definitely want to see it," said Corvelli,an activist in the South City Park neighborhood. Like Anderson, Corvelli said she feels some sympathy for the prostitutes. She agreed with the city's decision not to include their photographs in either the Web site or television program. "I don't want them to be further victimized, which I feel that would do," she said. Mostly, she just wants them and the problems associated with prostitution out of her neighborhood. She said some of the women have been making enough money to operate out of apartments they have rented. "There's a reason they call this the oldest profession," Corvelli said. "We're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least squeeze it out to Lakewood. Meet Dorothy, Denver prostitute. You won't see her on Johns TV, but you almost did. Earlier this week, Mayor Wellington Webb decided against putting prostitutes' pictures on the show, saying he felt that embarrassing their customers would be effective by itself in curbing street sex. Dorothy is glad about that. Seeing the women's pictures on television and the Internet would "ruin any chance of disabled people getting another chance in life," she says. And chances don't come easy for someone like Dorothy. She says she's mentally ill, has epilepsy, lives on Social Security and will be 50 years old in a couple of weeks. She wears sweat pants, T-shirts and tennis shoes. She says she has no family in Denver, that she was abandoned by her second husband who brought her here from Pennsylvania years ago. Her three children, she says, died in a fire. Asked why she was arrested this month for prostitution, she has a simple answer. "I was hungry." She went out about 5 one evening this month, hoping to make $20, doing "whatever he would have wanted." But she didn't know that the man who picked her up on the corner of Milwaukee Street and Colfax Avenue was a police officer. He asked her if she wanted a date and she said she just wanted a ride. "Don't you want to do anything else?" Dorothy quoted the man as asking. "Don't you want to go to City Park with me?" She went to City Park, then to jail. It was, she says, her fifth solicitation conviction. If she's caught again, she'll spend a year in jail, she says. Still, Dorothy feels she caught a break in this last arrest. "I was very fortunate," she says. "I didn't get the lady judge." She also felt fortunate on Thursday, when she was given a little hope wrapped up in a new home. She was moving from her flophouse apartment to federally subsidized housing downtown, which would be much cheaper and much cleaner. Dorothy was concerned that her name might be in the newspaper, but she thought speaking up might be helpful to people who don't have any idea why a woman would prostitute herself. "They're out there because they're hungry. They're out there because they're homeless. They're out there because they have mental problems," she says. "If they get a home once a week and a bath once a week, they're lucky." At least one "John" in Denver has his nose out of joint over the name Johns TV, the new Denver cable TV show that "exposes" convicted clients of prostitutes. "I got two e-mails from Johns joking about the name, and one that was genuinely miffed that we were calling it Johns TV," said mayoral mouthpiece Andrew Hudson. "We didn't consider other names." When you consider the names of similar shows airing in the United States and Canada, Johns TV seems downright timid (at least if your name isn't John). In Calgary, Alberta, it's the Calgary Ho Down. In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, it's the Saskatoon Ho Train. Parkdale, Ontario, calls it John's Hall of Fame. In Toronto, it's The Toronto Roundup. Orlando, Fla., calls it Busted! TV. Vancouver, British Columbia, calls its Web site Dear John. And in Charlotte, N.C., it's Shame TV. But John or Johns TV was the overwhelming favorite here, Hudson said. "I suppose if John Hickenlooper runs for mayor, he can't have a show called Johns TV," Hudson said. "We've cornered that one." Johns TV airs at 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily on Channel 8 and on the website beginning today. The show moves up an hour to 6 p.m. on Mondays due to the live broadcast of the Denver City Council meetings. And goodness knows you wouldn't want to mix up those two shows. There's technical school, there's parochial school - and now there's Johns School. That's John as in those who patronize prostitutes. Under a new policy announced by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, arrested johns will get to choose between attending a class on the evils of prostitution or facing 90 days in jail. "Pimps and prostitutes are only two-thirds of the age-old crime; the remaining one-third is the john," Hynes said. "Johns School will not only educate offenders but remind them that, as an equal part, they are in fact committing a crime." Under the program, offenders will be taught the health risks of prostitution, the adverse effect on the quality of life within the community and the negative impact on the prostitutes themselves. The five-hour course will be taught by assistant district attorneys, former prostitutes, health professionals, police officers, social workers and community leaders. Previously, johns were given community service or had their cases dismissed with time served. Defendants with violent criminal records will not be offered the class. "We want our Johns TV." OK, so it doesn't have quite the ring of the MTV slogan. But "Johns TV" is what Denver Mayor Wellington Webb calls a new offensive against prostitution. During his State of the City address Monday, Webb announced the city soon will be showing pictures of prostitutes and their customers on the city's TV channel and its Web site. "If we can't convict you to get you to change your ways, maybe we can embarrass you and get you to change your ways," Webb said to a round of applause. Webb said he's heard from members of the Unsinkables Inc., a Capitol Hill neighborhood group named after Denver's Molly Brown, who are concerned with prostitution on East Colfax Avenue. Denver police also have increased patrols and weekly stings, and have arrested hundreds of suspected hookers and clients in the past year. But that's not enough, Webb said. So starting July 25, the faces of convicted prostitutes and their customers will be broadcast on Denver Channel 8 twice a day, seven days a week. The images also will appear on the denvergov.org Web site. In addition, the city attorney's office will continue its policy of not accepting plea bargains for people accused of prostitution, the mayor said. Webb urged prostitutes to move their, um, business interests to a "friendlier community," away from Denver. That suggestion also got a round of applause. Kathi Anderson logged on to the city of Denver's Web site Thursday and looked at the photos of nine men convicted of soliciting prostitutes. She's seen their kind before. And she says it's just fine that others now are seeing them, too. In her walks as president of the Untouchables, a neighborhood group devoted to improving life on Capitol Hill, Anderson and her colleagues have run into plenty of the women plying the sex trade along East Colfax Avenue. Mostly, she feels sorry for them and considers them victims. Their customers are another matter. "I don't look at the Johns as victims at all," she said on the day Denver began publicizing the men caught in police prostitution stings. "Their families maybe. I don't think anyone wants to bring shame to their families. But they (the Johns) did." Neighbors who have been fighting prostitution along the Colfax corridor generally praised the city's initiative. At Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, associate director Sebastian Metz said the group has not taken a position on the so-called Johns TV. But CHUN does support Mayor Wellington Webb's orders to increase police enforcement and criminal penalties against prostitution. "We're supportive of anything that discourages prostitution," Metz said. "This is something that's an unproven method. If it gets results, we'll applaud. If it doesn't, we'll continue to press for the other things." Pamela Corvelli planned to watch the Johns TV show on Denver's Channel 8 Thursday night. "I've worked so hard for this, so I definitely want to see it," said Corvelli,an activist in the South City Park neighborhood. Like Anderson, Corvelli said she feels some sympathy for the prostitutes. She agreed with the city's decision not to include their photographs in either the Web site or television program. "I don't want them to be further victimized, which I feel that would do," she said. Mostly, she just wants them and the problems associated with prostitution out of her neighborhood. She said some of the women have been making enough money to operate out of apartments they have rented. "There's a reason they call this the oldest profession," Corvelli said. "We're not going to get rid of it, but we can at least squeeze it out to Lakewood. Meet Dorothy, Denver prostitute. You won't see her on Johns TV, but you almost did. Earlier this week, Mayor Wellington Webb decided against putting prostitutes' pictures on the show, saying he felt that embarrassing their customers would be effective by itself in curbing street sex. Dorothy is glad about that. Seeing the women's pictures on television and the Internet would "ruin any chance of disabled people getting another chance in life," she says. And chances don't come easy for someone like Dorothy. She says she's mentally ill, has epilepsy, lives on Social Security and will be 50 years old in a couple of weeks. She wears sweat pants, T-shirts and tennis shoes. She says she has no family in Denver, that she was abandoned by her second husband who brought her here from Pennsylvania years ago. Her three children, she says, died in a fire. Asked why she was arrested this month for prostitution, she has a simple answer. "I was hungry." She went out about 5 one evening this month, hoping to make $20, doing "whatever he would have wanted." But she didn't know that the man who picked her up on the corner of Milwaukee Street and Colfax Avenue was a police officer. He asked her if she wanted a date and she said she just wanted a ride. "Don't you want to do anything else?" Dorothy quoted the man as asking. "Don't you want to go to City Park with me?" She went to City Park, then to jail. It was, she says, her fifth solicitation conviction. If she's caught again, she'll spend a year in jail, she says. Still, Dorothy feels she caught a break in this last arrest. "I was very fortunate," she says. "I didn't get the lady judge." She also felt fortunate on Thursday, when she was given a little hope wrapped up in a new home. She was moving from her flophouse apartment to federally subsidized housing downtown, which would be much cheaper and much cleaner. Dorothy was concerned that her name might be in the newspaper, but she thought speaking up might be helpful to people who don't have any idea why a woman would prostitute herself. "They're out there because they're hungry. They're out there because they're homeless. They're out there because they have mental problems," she says. "If they get a home once a week and a bath once a week, they're lucky." It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue.It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Denver County Undersheriff Fred Oliva met with Denver County Court judges to inform them of the releases, but did not need court approval. The first release came days after Denver voters narrowly turned down a property tax increase that would have paid for a new $325 million jail at Interstate 25 and Sixth Avenue.It found prostitution to be the third-most-common offense of those whose sentences were cut short to make room for new inmates. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-01-2002, 04:19 AM:
Ooops, the UBB forum seems to limit how much I can type in one post. I'll continue......drugs. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Only those jailed for driving without a valid license or driving under the influence were released early more often. "I think that it is defeating the whole purpose" of the prostitution crackdown, said City Council member Elbra Wedgeworth. "We want them off the street, but we put them in jail and then they're right back out on the street." The first group granted early release, last Nov. 9, included 14 women serving time for a variety of nonviolent crimes, including shoplifting, drunken driving or prostitution. The reason for their release was to make room for a group of women picked up during a prostitution sting. "I'm outraged" at such revolving-door releases, Wedgeworth said, "but I understand because we have no place to put them." Webb spokesman Andrew Hudson said there is no contradiction between the mayor's anti-prostitution effort and the early-release program. "This is the reality of an overcrowded jail," he said. "You have to release folks to accommodate the people being brought in." Hudson stressed that the early releases don't mean that the city's position has changed. "Doing the stings and getting (prostitutes) off the streets is one thing, but we recognize the difference between keeping a county jail full and stopping the problem." Denver's jail is plagued by overcrowding, with an average 1,900 inmates squeezed into a jail designed to hold 1,350. This year 233 inmates have been released early from the jail, shaving a total of 703 days off their combined sentences. An inmate selected for early release must have served at least half of his or her sentence and be within 10 days of the release date, according to jail guidelines. None of those released so far was being held on weapons, domestic violence or assault charges. Hopefully you are now able to see my point of view. It all seems pretty black and white to me, as it should to everyone else who has read this as well. I'm sure that everybody on the forum will agree. Hopefully your struggle to grasp this situation clearly will reward you with the ability to see it as it really is.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-01-2002, 04:54 AM:
Ah, it seems I am mistaken. Thanks for clearing that up.
Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 08-02-2002, 02:30 PM:
o_Olay off the crack!
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-02-2002, 03:00 PM:
I think anyone who can prove they read this whole thread should get a film-tech T-shirt! (I would not get one.)
Posted by Manuel Francisco Valencia (Member # 710) on 08-02-2002, 04:01 PM:
Don't you guys have a job to go to.
Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 08-03-2002, 02:14 PM:
Looks to me as though a whole bunch of copying & pasting got done!
Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 08-03-2002, 04:19 PM:
To sum up both arguments,
"Ven shtet der putz,
ligt die saichel in drerdt!"
(When the [sex organ] stands
Wisdom [or common sense] lies in Hell!)
Posted by Steven Privett (Member # 718) on 08-03-2002, 07:39 PM:
Want to know why billy bob had to leave angelina?
You will not believe what she did...and actually got caught on camera too!
Click below to go to free adult passes where they are giving out free passes to watch this show..but hurry these rich celebs always sue have the clips removed!!!