Dear Johns: For Shame

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, AlterNet
Posted on January 18, 2006, Printed on January 24, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/30942/

It was launched with great fanfare last spring -- Operation Shame, a campaign to discourage the "johns" who drive Oakland, Calif.'s late-night streets to pick up prostitutes. At the heart of the campaign was a plan to arrest the johns (a slang term for men who solicit prostitutes) and then display their mugshot photos on prominent 10 feet by 22 feet billboards.

"We're going to shame the out-of-towners and locals who drive to our neighborhood to look for prostitutes," Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente told reporters at the time. Much of the prostitution problem was centered in the Fruitvale section of De La Fuente's 6th Council District, along the International Boulevard business thoroughfare that cuts through the southeastern end of Oakland....

But the billboard shaming policy is apparently widespread enough that a "Re-visioning Prostitution Policy: Creating Space for Sex Worker Rights and Challenging Criminalization" convention of sex workers in Las Vegas scheduled for this summer lists as one workshop topic "the effects of punitive policies which target clients ( shaming and billboard campaigns, etc.)." [Emphasis by Desiree Alliance]

...The police "are always around," another poster cautioned. "don't let your guard down for 1 second. always keep your eyes and ears open." But, apparently, he believed the risk was worth it. "Since the sun has come out there are lots of goodies out there," he added. "every day and every night you can find 'em."

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor is a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/30942/

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