Taunton is a city of roughly 60,000 residents, located in Massachusetts’ Bristol County south of Boston and Brockton and just northeast of Fall River and Providence, Rhode Island. Prostitution has posed chronic and visible problems in the community for several years, and has generated numerous complaints to law enforcement and city officials. In addition, the city has documented several targeted sexual assaults by men attempting to purchase sex (on both women offering acts of prostitution and female bystanders who declined commercial solicitation requests), homicides of women involved in prostitution, robberies of sex buyers, and cases of sex trafficking. In March 2014 two Taunton residents were charged with offenses associated with holding a “mentally disabled” woman against her will, drugging her, and arranging for her to be sexually abused for a fee. The offenders were arraigned and charged with one count each of trafficking a person for sexual servitude, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, kidnapping, and threatening to commit a crime.  The woman was able to escape and make her way to a hospital, where she was treated for multiple injuries.

Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and has therefore been targeted by local law enforcement agencies as a strategy for prevention and response. The Taunton Police Department has conducted periodic reverse stings to intercept sex buyers since at least 2005, if not earlier. These operations are typically conducted at street level, using one or more female undercover officers as decoys. Arrestees’ identities are sometimes publicized in press, but not consistently. In the mid-1990s, the Boston Globe reported that the city had begun airing the arraignments of sex buyers on a local access channel. It is unclear how long the program ran, and/or if it remains on air.

In April 2017, two men were arrested in a street level reverse sting, utilizing a female officer acting as a decoy and including a local police detective and a detectives from the Northern Bristol County Drug Task Force. The action was taken in response to complaints of residents living in the area of Harrison Street and the surrounding area, which includes Harrison Avenue and Winthrop Street. Each of the men were charged with a single count of offering to engage in sexual contact for a fee.  The men avoided trial and any chance of conviction by agreeing “forthwith,” meaning that day, to pay $500 in court costs.

In July 2018, the Taunton Police Department conducted a street-level reverse sting operation, targeting the traditional “hotspots” on Harrison Street up to Winthrop Street/Route 44, Harrison Avenue, and nearby High Street. Two men were arrested when they tried soliciting sex from two women who turned out to be officers posing as prostituted women. The price ranges the men negotiated ranged from $40 to $100. The first arrest came at around 2:45 p.m. on a Wednesday after police observed a man who spent 40 minutes driving past and making eye contact with the undercover officers, eventually pulling into a parking lot on Winthrop Street, at which point the female officers approached and began a conversation. The suspect raised the subject of sex and offered $100 if they would engage in what he called “porn sex.” After the women suggested he drive across the street and park in an eye clinic parking lot, male undercover officers using wireless transmitters arrived and arrested the man, charging him with a single count of agreeing to engage in sexual conduct for a fee. The second arrest that day occurred shortly after 9:15 p.m. under similar circumstances, when the suspect pulled over on Harrison Street and offered one of the female officers $40 if she would perform a sexual act.  The identities of the arrested men were publicly disclosed.