So let me play this out a bit.  My wife makes a wrong turn into a “high crime” area (a la Bonfire of the Vanities) and her car breaks down.  She tries to flag down a passing vehicle for help and . . . she’s a hooker?  Let’s try a variation.  She sees a white guy wearing white socks and sensible black shoes, but otherwise looking like a skel walking down a street and goes up to him, with a hopeful look on her face, and in a demure voice inquires, “Are you a police officer? . . . she’s a hooker?

The law has 2 qualifications: 

The offense must occur in a public place known to police as a high-crime area, and must be committed by someone who has been convicted of a prostitution offense within the past two years

Now there’s no official place known as a “high-crime area.”  These areas exist in the facile statement of police officers such that every area outside the Vatican qualifies.  And as to the second prong, a conviction for a prostitution offense within the past two years, can someone explain to me how a police officer would know that just by looking at some waving person on the street?  Could this be one of those arrest first, inquire later type laws?

Prostitution is apparently a blight on Huntington, West Virginia.  Has it occurred to anyone that arresting waving women on the street is not going to address the root of the problem?