THE POLICE, it seems, have taken up the ball which last month this newspaper said was in their court.

We said this when reporting how residents of Blackburn's Montague Street area had resorted to self-help action to rid their neighbourhood of the prostitutes and pimps who had been plaguing it for two whole years.

For, in a night-time swoop this week, they arrested 15 women and charged 14 with loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution.

As part of their bail, curfews were imposed banning them from going back to the area they had turned into a red-light zone.

And similar purges are promised as long as the problem remains.

Dealing with street prostitution is no easy matter.

It exists because there is a market for it and efforts to sweep its effects out of one area frequently results in them moving to another rather than being snuffed out altogether. The real response, then, should be aimed at the cause of the effects - the prostitutes' clients.

The police, we are glad to see, are warning that, in addition to targeting the prostitutes themselves, they will be focusing attention on their clients.

These people, they say, may wish to consider the consequences of possible legal action against them and the embarrassment they would suffer.

Let us, then, see that threat quickly backed up with some red-faced kerb-crawlers appearing in the dock along with the whores.

It is not just that natural justice demands action against all who are responsible for the creation of these unwanted red-light areas, but also that the need is to get rid of them for good rather than to just cope with them.

The only other way would be to have legalised brothels.

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