Policing - NY Times - Naming Names in Paterson, and Let the Named Beware

*
New York Times

Monday, May 8, 2006

Naming Names in Paterson, and Let the Named Beware
By TINA KELLEY and NATE SCHWEBER

In an effort to discourage people from coming to Paterson, N.J., to buy drugs and solicit prostitutes, the Police Department has begun buying full-page ads in local newspapers listing the names, partial addresses and birth dates of people arrested for those crimes.

The first ads, which cost the department $2,500, appeared on Wednesday in The Record and The Herald News and listed the names of about 600 people arrested between July 2005 and February 2006. The Police Department plans to buy additional ads on a quarterly basis.

Under the headline "Caveat Emptor," the ads read: "Be advised that if you attempt to purchase drugs or sex in the City of Paterson you will be arrested, jailed, and have your vehicle impounded. Your name will then appear in a future newspaper ad like those listed below."

Mayor José Torres, who is up for re-election to a second four-year term when voters go to the polls tomorrow, said the ads were meant to send a message to the city's unwanted visitors. "Out-of-towners are not going to come here to buy drugs and sex, and their family and neighbors will not even know about it," he said.

City officials said that at least half of the 2,233 people arrested for the offenses from July to February came from outside Paterson, though they noted that future ads would include the names of Paterson residents. (There was only enough space for 600 names in the first ads).

The city, a former factory town of 150,000 people about 20 miles from Manhattan, has seen a rise in gang activity and street crime, with guns and drugs becoming more prevalent, according to the authorities.

Other towns and cities have tried similar approaches. The police in Chicago and in Frederick, Md., for instance, post the photos of people arrested for soliciting prostitutes on their department Web sites.

In 2002 and 2003, the Camden County prosecutor's office bought ads in two local newspapers, listing those arrested for trying to buy drugs in the city of Camden. By 2004, the effort proved too costly and was discontinued. Prosecutors there also sent postcards to the homes of those charged with soliciting prostitutes, informing their families of their arrests.

Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, objected to Paterson's advertising campaign.

"Why a city would use public resources in an attempt to humiliate people not even convicted of a crime is beyond me," she said. "I'm confident that this kind of punitive publicity is not a deterrent. So again, in this country, you're innocent until proven guilty."

Courtney Guyton, an Atlanta lawyer, wrote a 1996 Vanderbilt Law Review article entitled "Sex in the Sunlight," on the effectiveness of publishing the names of those suspected of soliciting prostitutes.

"There is a pretty good legal argument to be made that it may be unconstitutional, because you're punishing people without a trial or guilty plea or conviction, if it is punitive in its intent," she said. "If anything, it might have the effect of pushing the activity elsewhere, outside a particular jurisdiction. In some cases that's what lawmakers are out to do."

The mother of one person whose name was published after being arrested in Paterson on drug charges, said it hurt families as much as or more than those named.

"Do you think my daughter's caring? She doesn't even know her name is in the paper. Who's being punished?" said the woman, who answered the family's phone and identified herself as the mother but declined to give her name.

She said that her daughter was a homeless drug addict, and that she had found herself the subject of gossip once before when her daughter's problems ended up in the newspaper. "We're the lowlifes?" she asked.

In Paterson, Kelvin Rodriguez, 25, who works at a grocery store on Godwin Avenue, near several notorious drug corners, said on Thursday that the ads had one damaging effect. "They make it seem like Paterson is a place of shame," he said. "They're trying to say that for people who live out of town, that's the only reason they come into town."

But Juan Reyes, 41, who works in an auto parts store in Paterson, said: "Stuff like this should be done more often. It's a little, but it helps."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/08/nyregion/08paterson.html?pagewanted=print

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff and Clippings have no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor are Plainfield Today, Plainfield Stuff or Clippings endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)