Lufkin is an East Texas city located in Angelina County, TX with a population of approximately 34,000 residents. Local instances of prostitution and sex trafficking have been documented in the city for decades. Among the more serious issues associated with the city’s commercial sex market is sex trafficking. For example, in December 2017, the Texas Department of Public Safety conducted a web-based sting that resulted in the arrest and charging of a local sex trafficker for prostitution/online solicitation of a minor. Special agents with the DPS Criminal Investigation Division communicated with the offender through social media. During the course of the conversation, the offender allegedly agreed to pay for sex with a minor. At that point, undercover agents set up a meeting location in Lufkin and waited for the suspect to arrive and arrested him when he appeared and took steps to complete the transaction. The offender was transported to and booked at the Angelina County jail. The offender’s identity, photo, age, location, and charges were included in reports from local news sources. In 2018, an Angelina County grand jury indicted a local sex trafficker on two third-degree felony online solicitation of a minor charges. According to the affidavit, a Lufkin PD officer was dispatched to an apartment complex after receiving a report that a man had sent sexually explicit messages to a 15-year-old girl on Facebook Messenger. The offender allegedly sent the minor a photo of his genitalia, sexually explicit voice messages, and asked her to perform oral sex in exchange for several hundred dollars. A friend of the 15-year-old girl, who was 19 at the time, messaged the offender to ask why he was sending sexually explicit content to a minor, the offender responded by offering the friend money in exchange for sex as well. After discovering the offender’s prior arrest record, officials matched his Facebook profile picture with booking photos from prior arrests. Officials arrested the exploiter and seized his phone as evidence. The offender agreed to a plea deal where he was sentenced to serve eight years in a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison. The offender’s identity, photo, age, location, and charges were released by local news sources.

In an effort to reduce the demand for prostitution, Lufkin police have implemented several demand reduction tactics such as street-level reverse stings, web-based reverse stings, the creation of a neighborhood watch program, and the use of cameras in areas known for high rates of prostitution-related activity. According to police surveyed for the National Assessment, the Lufkin Police Department has been conducting street-level reverse stings periodically since 1995, averaging about two reverse stings per year. To encourage community vigilance, a neighborhood watch program was established in 1990. Additionally, in 2006, the LPD placed 360-degree cameras in Brandon Park, since this was the area where the majority of prostitution-related activity in the city occurred. While the 360-degree camera reduced prostitution and drug related crimes in the Brandon Park area, residents were not convinced that prostitution-related offenses were decreasing as a whole. According to residential reports, the use of cameras by LPD effectively moved these types of crimes out of Brandon Park, but subsequently pushed prostitution-related activity into other neighborhoods within the city.

Prostitution-related activity and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates results in complaints to law enforcement agencies from residents and businesses. For example, in 2013, a man was arrested and booked in Angelina County Jail for solicitation of prostitution as a result of civilian reports on two separate occasions within the same week. According to reports, a woman was walking her dog along the Azalea Trail (a local walking trail), when she passed a man who began following her, who then started saying sexual comments to the woman. The second instance occurred five days later where the same man was running along the trail and passed a woman, only to turn around and start saying sexual comments to her. The woman told police that as she was running away from the offender, he offered to pay her for sex. The same offender was arrested later that same year, in July 2013, for indecent exposure after he exposed and touched himself provocatively while telling a woman to look. The offender was sentenced to 120 days in jail. In 2014, the offender once again exposed himself as he was masturbating while riding his bike in Kiwanis Park. A woman reported the incident to the Lufkin Police Department. According to officials, the offender was arrested and charged with public lewdness and criminal trespass. The sex offender had a criminal trespass warning against him barring him from being in any city park after the 2013 incidents. The offender’s identity, photo, age, location, and charges were released by local news sources.