According to a Reuters report, people who solicit prostitutes in Oakland, California, could find their faces plastered on billboards under a new shaming program - civil rights groups call the program bad public policy.

The city started putting up billboards on Wednesday showing men arrested for soliciting sex. Other signs invite prostitutes to quit by calling a help line.

According to Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, "this idea came out of just thinking about new ideas, doing something to deal with this increasing problem, especially with the exploitation of underage women."

The photos on the billboards were partially blurred so the men are not easily identifiable. But officials hope in the future photos will be clearly displayed.

De La Fuente argues with those who see the billboards as medieval public humiliations that the program has been used in Texas.

Alan Schlosser, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union for Northern California, argues that "it doesn't seem to us to be appropriate for Oakland to be using shaming as an additional and extrajudicial punishment to single out this group of offenders. We don't think this is good public policy."

Some newspapers have previously printed the names of those soliciting sex for money, and courts have backed punishments that include shaming. According to Reuters, last year a U.S. federal appeals court allowed a punishment in which a mail thief had to wear a signboard telling of his crime.