North Amityville is a hamlet of approximately 18,000 residents located within the town of Babylon in Suffolk County, New York. Prostitution is a longstanding problem in the city and throughout Suffolk County, generating complaints to police. To address the issue, the Suffolk County Police Department has conducted street-level reverse stings in North Amityville (as well as nearby Copiague and Wyandanch) since the 1980s in an effort to reduce consumer-level demand for prostitution. Between January and May of 1989, SCPD officers arrested 241 prostituted women and 237 sex buyers. At the time, police reported that arresting sex buyers appeared to be more effective, stating, “we find that after we arrest a john we never see him back. It’s helping to curtail the problem.”