Perth Voice Interactive

WA POLICE are refusing to get involved with Vincent city council’s “name and shame” scheme.

The council is so fed up with street prostitution plaguing Highgate it’s resolved to name offenders. But in a meeting with mayor Alannah MacTiernan, police refused to back the plan.

Central metropolitan superintendent Paul Coombes told the Voice police have a lot of strategies to deal with the problem but naming and shaming is “not a space that WA police need to get involved in”.

“I know it has been done by some law enforcement agencies in the US, but I’m not sure if anyone’s done any research in what it would achieve,” he said.

“Obviously it would cause great embarrassment and distress to those caught up in the operation, but as far as preventing the problem of street prostitution, I don’t know that it would assist.”

Mr Coombes also said it was difficult to prove who was a punter and who was just innocently passing through the street.

“That’s one of the dangers in running a name and shame operation. You may, and it has happened in other jurisdictions, you may identify someone who is engaged in those activities when in fact they have legitimate reasons to be on the street.”

He says his officers have blitzed the area recently making Highgate the most policed suburb in the central metro area.

But he says getting to the root of street prostitution needs a broad approach.

“[From] studies that have been done worldwide, people that engage in street prostitution are in the margin of society. There’s usually alcohol and substance abuse and chaotic lifestyles involved.

“Trying to unravel all those facets of their life and break the circuit of drug and alcohol dependence is very difficult and it’s more than a policing issue.”

In this week’s police report to council, the number of people being issued move-on notices has dropped from 11 to three, while the number being charged with prostitution act offences has risen from zero to five.

It’s now been a month since rangers started patrols on the worst-affected streets and at Tuesday’s meeting councillors endorsed another $12,540 in funding to keep the rangers there another month.

by DAVID BELL