Some curious responses come from sex sting

People who have posted comments on the story about 10 men who were caught in a police sting that drew men to a fictitious prostitute covered quite a range.

Several readers wrote that the men were victims. If they were, they were active victims since they believed they would be served as advertised. It’s hard to be a victim if you willingly participate in a crime.

Others say prostitution is a victimless crime. That might be true if the prostitute and the john have no family — neither has a wife or husband they are intimate with or children who go to school knowing their mom or dad is a criminal. Or parents who thought they raised them better.

Then there are the people who thought it was wrong to print their names before they went to trial. That has some merit, but newspapers, including this one, print names of people accused of crimes all the time. In fact, it’s likely some of you who didn’t like the names printed probably read the Police Beat every issue to see if you know someone who has been caught driving drunk or stealing property. If we chose to quit publishing that roster of alleged criminals, the phones here wouldn’t stop ringing.

As an example, the Dutch Harbor Fisherman has global readers of its Law & Order notes because of the way they are cleverly written.

There’s no secret that many people are interested in reading about the underbelly of society.

Then were people saying the police should be going after bigger targets: drug abusers, drunk drivers, thieves, robbers and other criminals.

Which brings us back to Police Beat. If you think the police and troopers aren’t out there finding criminals, you aren’t a reader of Police Beat. Some say they should be cracking down on meth labs. They did. That’s why there are few labs here anymore. Most meth comes from Outside, mostly other countries.

The drug of choice now is heroin. If the Frontiersman learns of a heroin bust, we will name those involved. If it’s a big enough, we will follow it through the courts to its conclusion, even though it may take months, possibly a year for a decision.

In that vein, our reporter plans to see how these 10 men are treated in the judicial system.

They may be found not guilty, but they won’t be found innocent. In their hearts and minds, they planned to pay a woman to have sex. Those 10 men are not victims.