Aliquippa is a small community of approximately 10,000 residents, located in the northwest suburbs of Pittsburgh in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Among the problems associated with prostitution in the city was the murder of a prostituted woman in 1994, and the murder of a john in 1995.  To curtail prostitution activity along Franklin Avenue, the Aliquippa Police Department conducted a series of street-level reverse stings between 2001 and 2003. The operations, which employed undercover female officers as decoys, were facilitated by officers from the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office and Pennsylvania’s State Weed and Seed Initiative. One sting, conducted in June 2002, resulted in the arrest of 11 johns in 48 hours. As a warning to other would-be sex buyers, police released the names and identities of all arrestees to the local media.