Methuen is a city located in Essex County, Massachusetts, and has a population of roughly 53,000. As in the neighboring community of Lawrence, the Methuen Police Department has reported links between prostitution (a misdemeanor) and a wide range of felonies.

In the early 1990s, Methuen and Lawrence residents in the Arlington area– a neighborhood straddling both cities– drew significant attention after they began using video cameras to film drug and prostitution sales occurring on city streets, and sharing the evidence with law enforcement. The Boston Herald and Boston Globe reported that residents routinely recorded the license plate numbers of cars seen that were apparently being used to solicit women for commercial sex acts and/or idling in areas where prostitution was known to occur.

To curtail commercial sex and reduce the crimes it attracts and generates, MPD officers have conducted at least one reverse sting targeting sex buyers. The operation, conducted in mid-2011, involved decoy web advertisements placed by law enforcement and netted the arrest of at least one sex buyer. The reversal was staged at a cooperating local hotel. After his arrest, the offender’s name and other identifying information was publicized in the press.