Mayville is a city in Dodge County, Wisconsin, with roughly 5,200 residents. Prostitution activity has been well-documented in the city, and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates result in complaints to law enforcement agencies. For example, in 2017, a 31-year-old woman was charged with prostitution after being arrested by Mayville Police, who had responded to a call for a disturbance in the 0-100 block of South School Street. They found a man standing outside an apartment, yelling at a woman inside. The responding officer could hear the woman describing an encounter with a different man who had apparently agreed to have sex with her for money but left without paying. The man standing outside said the woman was his wife and had engaged in prostitution in the past. The woman appeared intoxicated and was arrested for prostitution and violating her probation, and the man was cited for disorderly conduct.

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. Demand reduction tactics used in the town include the arrest of sex buyers and the disclosure of their identities.  For example, in May 2019, authorities investigated a Mayville attorney and civic leader who was issued a prostitution citation for his alleged paid sexual abuse of a teenage girl, age 16. Mayville Police responded to assist a Dodge County Sheriff’s sergeant in investigating a rental vehicle pulled over in Mayville. Police detected an odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle, but the two teenage girls in the vehicle denied knowing why the vehicle smelled like marijuana. Law enforcement checked the vehicle and found evidence of marijuana, a bottle of cognac under the passenger seat, and $400 in the center console. According to a Mayville Police report, the vehicle had been rented in Milwaukee, and the girls were in Mayville visiting the one who had rented it, who was later determined to be a sex buyer. The man told officers he had given the girls the $400 for a trip one of them wanted to take to Los Angeles. He admitted to having sex with one of the girls in a hotel earlier that week but denied anything happening that night. The man appeared to be in “disbelief” when told the girl was 16 and said he had been told she was 22. The man was issued a citation for prostitution. His identity was publicly disclosed.