Guilford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, that is situated on I-95 and the Connecticut seacoast. Its population is roughly 22,000. Prostitution and sex trafficking are well-documented problems in the city. For example, in 2000 two Guilford High School students were arrested after they tried to start a prostitution business and recruit underage girls for it. The two 17-year-olds turned themselves in after learning police had warrants for their arrests, and the Deputy Police Chief said he believed an arrest warrant was expected to be served on another girl. The three students had made it known that the underage girls were available for sexual abuse for money, and they would go to parties and list what acts they would perform and their prices.

Tactics used to address such problems include those focusing on consumer-level demand. For example, in January 2018, Guilford police arrested five men in an online reverse sting operation targeting men seeking to buy access to sexually abuse children. Operation “Not in my Town” was a collaborative effort between Guilford police, the New Haven State’s Attorney and the Veterans for Child Rescue Foundation. Officials said the men had gone online using various social media applications and arranged “sexual liaisons” with fictional children. The arrested men had all conversed online with a police officer posing as a minor, and all five were charged with Criminal Attempt to Commit Sexual Assault in the 2nd Degree and Criminal Attempt to Commit Risk of Injury. The identities of the arrested men were publicly disclosed. Law enforcement stated that the decoy ads had over 5,000 responses.