A view on crackdown
Regarding Sunday, Nov. 17's front page feature "The Goal is Simple," I ask: What's sensational about these persons' alleged activities? Tough-on-crime conservatives like to cite conventional wisdom about no one being above the law. However, inner-city residents are shouldering the blame for Chattanooga's social ills. I feel poorly served by the federal agents' "crackdown on crack" and the fawning efforts of the local authorities. Why not just call the article "Crack's Black"?
EDWARD D. ROBBINS
Policy invites employee fraud
City employees should not be allowed to put domestic partners on their insurance because eventually fraudulent claims will be filed. The only proof needed is proof that they reside at the same address for one year. Just think about it. If a city employee knows a friend who needs surgery or needs long-term, expensive medicine that their own insurance won't cover, the city employee and that person could just go to the post office and fill out a change of address form and have that person added to their address. After a year of that person's mail coming to the city employee's address, the person can legally be added to the city employee's insurance and they never resided in the same household one single day. That's why I am against it. And that will eventually take place, just wait and see.
P.D. BELL, Hixson
Give police credit for prostitution fight
In his recent letter, a writer asked an excellent question: Why is prostitution unacceptable when sex is regularly used in advertising? While opinions differ on the morality of purchased "recreational sex," two aspects of prostitution show it is clearly wrong and must remain illegal. Men who purchase prostitution harm their own families and reputations. The writer ignores this when he states that people who oppose prostitution ruin the lives of "johns." Aside from breaking Tennessee law, men who visit prostitutes break trust with their families and employers, as is evidenced by the resignation and leave of two men cited recently by the Chattanooga police. Because prostitution is covert, it hides crimes -- including assault, human trafficking, and child and domestic abuse -- committed against prostitutes. The writer implies prostitutes consent to sell their bodies. However, studies show most prostitutes want to stop selling themselves. Prostitutes often enter the sex trade because of poverty, or because they are forced into it; but compliance exacted through drugs or fear of punishment is not consent-- it's coercion. Prostitution degrades those who engage in it -- and their families -- and facilitates the perpetration of other crimes. By conducting their anti-prostitution operation, the Chattanooga police have served their community well.
GRACE HUGHBANKS, Signal Mountain