Herndon is a town of approximately 24,000 residents, located in Fairfax County, Virginia. Prostitution activity has been well-documented within Herndon and throughout the county, and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates results in complaints to law enforcement agencies from residents and businesses. Among the more serious crimes associated with the local commercial sex market is sex trafficking.

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. In August 2013, Fairfax County Police Department officers conducted a large-scale reverse sting that used the web to apprehend sex buyers. According to The Washington Post, “23 men were arrested after communicating over the Internet with undercover officers they believed were prostitutes” and arranging to meet the officers at hotels in Herndon, Tysons Corner, Falls Church, and Springfield. The FCPD did not release the names of the arrestees, nor did they disclose the number of men arrested at each location. That reverse sting was not the first time Herndon hotels made news for prostitution-related activities in 2013. In January, FCPD officers discovered four 17-year-old females being compelled to be sex trafficked by two adult pimps out of a local Hyatt hotel room. The men were charged with “sex trafficking of a child, aiding prostitution or illicit sexual intercourse, residing in or frequenting a rowdy place and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” In July 2015, Herndon Police Department officers collaborated with the FCPD to conduct a street-level reversal near the Fairfax County Parkway. Seventeen male sex buyers were arrested during the operation; their identities were not released to the public.