Kissimmee is a city of approximately 80,000 residents situated near Orlando, FL, in Osceola County, FL. Prostitution and sex trafficking are persistent and visible problems in the city and in surrounding communities. Among the more serious crimes associated with the commercial sex market is child sex trafficking. For example, in November of 2013, an Osceola County mother was accused of attempting to force her three teenage daughters into prostitution at a bus stop in Kissimmee.

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 an effort to deter sex buyers, the Kissimmee Police Department has been conducting street-level reverse stings since 1985 and has continued to do so. Some of the operations have been large-scale; for example, in May of 2012, a single web-based reverse sting resulted in the arrest of over 40 sex buyers. Kissimmee is also among one of the first sites that reported the use of various demand reduction tactics such as auto seizures (1995), implementing public education programs targeting demand (1998), web-based reverse stings (1998), driver’s license suspension for sex buyers (2000), and the use of surveillance cameras for sex buyer arrests (2003).