Peter Hermann is back!

When things were just starting to get boring around Bmore, Peter Hermann has come back from his stint in the Middle East to blog about crime in Baltimore. good! The more people talking about crime, better for all. Peter used to be the police/crime reporter in Baltimore. At one point, the Sun brought up from Florida, I think, a hotshot crime reporter named Jim Haner. But something must  have happened, because Haner kinda fizzled out and really never did much crime reporting.

Peter at least stayed with it and tried to develop sources and write some good cop stuff. I think he became a little too enamored with Commissioner Thomas Frazier, though, and his stories on Frazier programs became a little too fawning.

His newest blog leads right into the issue of street prostitution here in Bodymore. It's a problem which just doesn't seem to go away. Mostly because enforcement is non-existent and too focused on the ladies. (Not all of whom work in the evening.)

Now, Buz is not sure that legalizing prostitution is a good thing, but he does think, if it is going to be illegal, laws against it must be enforced. The only way to knock it out of a specific neighborhood (it is probably impossible to eliminate it), is very simply to target the Johns. That is, sting operations, using multiple police officers posing as prostitutes, who get solicited for money. The Johns get arrested, and their cars get towed away. Of course, it would be helpful if the judges were on board, and stopped giving PBJs out to some of these clowns. (Or maybe all of these clowns.) In addition, to the decoy squads, uniformed patrol officers, particularly on the midnight shift can easily spot trolling johns. Many of them commit traffic violations, and many have been drinking. If the word gets out that a particular neighborhood, say Pigtown, is having rigorous enforcement, the dum-dumbs might  go somewhere else. On the court end of things, a first time arrest for either prostitute of john is indicative, usually, of someone in need of help. Usually, the women are often pathetic creatures, heroin and crack addicts, with no real means of support. Typically, the guys are in it for some sort of macho thrill, and many of them are borderline sickies--at least the ones who cruise the streets looking to pickup "dates".

I think we could learn a lot from countries, such as Holland, where prostitution is legalized--though I cannot think I'd like to have it around my house. Of course, we have it already in Baltimore, not just in Pigtown, but in Hampden, Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, and all up and down Garrison Boulevard and Park Heights. OOps, and I forgot it's around beautiful, wonderful Patterson Park. In fact, walking after dark in Medfield the other day, I got waved at twice by a woman on the other side of the street. Now, of course, she was no real threat, but I felt a mite uncomfortable. Any  locations, I leave out?

There is a sex blog dedicated to the sport(?) of trolling for street walkers; just reading it for a few minutes makes you sick. Like, don't these guys have a life? Wouldn't they like a real relationship with a woman instead of this pick up stranger on the street stuff?