Surveillance cameras and other video technology can be used to discourage sex buyers or to provide evidence against them. Openly-used cameras serve as a deterrent, and those used covertly help to gather evidence for police and prosecutors.  In some instances, members of communities have used video cameras and have posted footage on websites, or forwarded the evidence to police. Cameras have been used in these ways in more than 260 U.S. cities and counties.

To learn more about this intervention and how it has been implemented, please see our Tactic Summary  document (March, 2023) as well as the links to resources provided below. You may also locate where in the United States that this tactic has been used by visiting Demand Forum’s mapping or listing functions, and selecting from the list of tactics. By clicking on each of the cities and counties listed or mapped, you may access brief summaries of the implementation of each tactic in that community, and links to source documentation.

Reports on Use of Cameras to Combat Demand for Commercial Sex:

• Buffalo, NY:
  • Workable Solutions to Prostitution (2000)
• Gordon Heights, NY:
  • “Town Puts Prostitutes on Videotape” (1993)
• Jupiter, FL:
  • “How Jupiter Detectives Gathered Evidence in Prostitution Sting” (2019)
• Sanford, FL:
  • “Florida Police Use License Plate Cameras to Curtail Prostitution” (2013)
• Tacoma, WA:
  • “Crackdown on Pacific Avenue: Extra patrols, community activism make a dent in prostitution” (2007)
  • “Neighbors plan crime control” (2007)
  • “Tacoma Police Cracking Down on Prostitution” (2009)
• Vallejo, CA:
  • “Success Fighting Prostitution Prompts Vallejo To Deploy More Cameras” (2011)

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