Prostitution is a crime that always involves two criminals - the person selling sex and the person buying it. Too often only the prostitute is arrested, though clients share equally in the guilt.
Customers of prostitutes are more difficult to convict because they have to be caught in the act of soliciting sex, but deterring them is just as important as punishing the prostitutes.Legislators, law enforcement agencies and judges should get tougher on the customers of prostitutes, but a bill being proposed by Rep. Steve Barth, D-Salt Lake, to allow police to keep the vehicles used by anyone convicted of crimes related to prostitution could cause unfair hardship to co-owners of the cars.
Modeled after laws that have survived judicial scrutiny in other states, the proposal would require the permanent confiscation of the cars of people who use their own vehicles for transactions involving money and sex, be they customers or pimps. That's a fitting punishment, except in cases wherein the person convicted is not the sole owner of the car.
The worst-case scenario could be particularly painful for an unsuspecting spouse. She not only would learn of her husband's criminal activities and his faithlessness, she would also lose her car if the couple owned it jointly and her husband used it in the crime.
Any other co-owner also could lose ownership of the car, but it probably wouldn't be as personally devastating as it would be to a spouse.
If the bill could be written to allow confiscation of only cars owned solely by the criminal, it would be more fair to those who already suffer enough from the behavior of family members. But such a bill would have to protect against people who try to regain their property by falsely claiming joint ownership, something a quick check of motor-vehicle records could confirm.
Other types of penalties advocated by law enforcement agencies and prosecutors in Salt Lake City and county include home confinement for those convicted of sex solicitation and mandatory testing of customers for sexually transmitted diseases.
Under a home-confinement sentence, the prisoner would be monitored with an electronic bracelet. More jail time also would be a deterrent, but limited jail space makes that difficult.
Others advocate using public humiliation as a punishment by publishing in the newspaper the names of those convicted of soliciting.
Many prostitutes' customers are respected members of the community and may decide to change their habits if they believed their activities could not be kept secret. Such types of punishments would deter customers without punishing wives or families more than necessary.