What's old is new again.

At last night's meeting of the Southern District Police and Community Relations Council, Terry Hickey briefed residents on several interesting ideas to combat prostitution, a persistent problem in many city neighborhoods including Brooklyn and Curtis Bay.

Hickey, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law, talked about a prostitution court, a school for Johns and bringing back an initiative called Operation Relentless.

Baltimore police in the Southern District tried Operation Relentless in 1999 but it never quite got off the ground. The idea was to have residents record license plate numbers of men driving suspiciously, such as circling the block or talking to prostitutes, and sending the information to police. They would then send letters on police stationary to the owners warning them that their vehicles had been seen driven by somebody suspected of "illegal drug or prostitution activity."

The residents loved it. Defense lawyers were concerned that names of innocent people could end up in police files as potential criminal suspects based on the untrained observations of city residents.

Don't people have the right to circle or stop on a public street without their names showing up in a police file, and then shared with others?

On the other hand, don't residents have the right to live in peace without having women solicit men in front of homes?

Residents at last night's meeting applauded when Hickey said Operation Relentless might be revived to combat a problem that law enforcement hasn't found a way to resolve. Most people liked the fact it targeted the men rather than women. Hickey said he is awaiting final approval from the Baltimore Police Department. I have a call into them to determine where this program stands.

I'll follow up and I'd love to hear from you on this.