Camp Verde is a town in Yavapai County, Arizona, with a population of about 12,000.  Prostitution and sex trafficking have been well-documented in the communities within Yavapai County county towns and unincorporated areas, including Camp Verde.

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. The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office has conducted web-based reverse stings to apprehend adults soliciting acts of prostitution from children online.  For example, in August 2014, the YCSO conducted a third web-based anti-child prostitution investigation, netting eight men in the process. During the operation, the men allegedly “made contact [with undercover officers] in response to a notice from an internet publication” and agreed to meet what they thought were minor girls for commercial sex at a nearby motel room in Camp Verde. Seven men were arrested after they arrived at the location and made an explicit offer of money for sex with a minor; an eighth man was arrested at his home after officers served a search warrant. The sex buyer, a convicted sex offender, had “made arrangements for specific sex” with the underage girls but had not followed through with the plan. In the days following the operation, all of the arrestees’ names and mugshots were publicized in local media outlets.