Colusa County is located in the Central Valley region of California, northwest of the state capital of Sacramento.  It has a population of approximately 21,000, and the county seat is the city of Colusa. Prostitution and sex trafficking activity have been well-documented in the communities and unincorporated areas of the county.  This activity 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. For example, in January, 2013, FBI announced that a newly unsealed criminal complaint detailed a case of human trafficking in the Central Valley. Sex buyers with $40 were able to buy 15 minutes worth of sexual abuse with enslaved Latin American women out of unassuming “storefronts” throughout the area, including Yuba City, Stockton, and Fairfield.

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, 2017, an arrested man pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution as part of a plea bargain orchestrated by the Colusa County District Attorney’s Office. He had been arrested the prior month along with three other suspects, as part of a human trafficking sting led by the Colusa Task Force. The arrests were made in Colusa and Yuba City, with help from other local agencies.  In March 2018 a reverse sting operation was conducted as part of an effort to combat the consumer demand that drives human trafficking and prostitution, and resulted in the arrest of at least two men, both of Yuba City. The men were booked in to the Sutter County Jail on charges of prostitution. The D.A.’s office was assisted by personnel from the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office, Yuba City Police along with the Colusa County Sheriff’s Office and Colusa County D.A. The Sutter County District Attorney’s office at the time announced plans to continue these operations in the future in an attempt to reduce the overwhelming demand of Human Trafficking/prostitution in Sutter County and within its communities, such as Yuba City.