Norwalk is a city of approximately 91,000 residents, located between Darien and Westport in Fairfield County, Connecticut. Situated at the juncture of U.S. Route 7 & Interstate 95, the city has dealt with persistent and visible prostitution activity along its major roads for more than four decades.  Local forced prostitution and child sex trafficking cases have drawn national attention, and reports of child sexual exploitation in the area date as far back as the 1970s.  There have also been cases of sex buyers being robbed by individuals during commercial sex acts.  Multiple cases of prostitution-related assaults and homicides have also been documented, such as a case of a female college student engaged in prostitution found murdered in 1997, and another case in 2002 in which a prostituted woman was strangled to death during sex with a male buyer.

To combat the local commercial sex market and accompanying crime problems, anti-demand tactics have been employed since at least June 1976, when officers from the Norwalk Police Department conducted a street-level reverse sting in the South Norwalk area. Several small-scale john stings followed, with larger operations conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s. From the beginning, the Norwalk Hour has publicized the names of all individuals arrested for prostitution-related crimes.

Some sex buyer arrests have occurred not from reverse stings, but from discovering prostitution while investigating other crimes.  For example, in June, 2018, a motor vehicle stop was made in Norwalk after local police patrolling the area of South Main Street observed a man that was known to them as having a suspended license driving toward them. The driver had been arrested multiple times and had contact with police just three weeks earlier. The man had two passengers — a male and female — in the car. When officers stopped the car, police said the man in the back seat attempted to flee, but was detained. An investigation determined there was probably cause supporting charges of the male passenger soliciting prostitution, and the female passenger offering prostitution. All three occupants of the vehicle were arrested, the passengers on prostitution charges, and the driver on charges of driving with a suspended license and drug possession.

The city has tried several other strategies to deter sex buyers; since at least 1978, the NPD has utilized cameras and other recording devices to track sex buyers’ interactions with police decoys during sting operations. In August of the same year, the city announced it would expunge the record of 12 arrested men in exchange for a mandatory $75 donation to the United Way.

In October 1993, the Connecticut State Senate adopted a law enabling cities to seize all vehicles used for the purposes of solicitation. In a press conference, state representatives cited rampant street prostitution in Norwalk as a major factor behind the policy change. While the law originally demanded customers also forfeit their vehicles, it was retooled in 1997 after officers complained that many sex buyers were arrested in “borrowed” cars. Currently, arrested buyers may still have their vehicles seized and impounded.

As Norwalk Police have continued to target the customers of women engaged in prostitution, they have documented cases of violent attacks on sexually exploited persons by local sex buyers. For example, in August 2012, the NPD reported two instances where a sex buyer physically assaulted a woman engaged in prostitution when she requested that he use a condom; in March 2011, a similar attack resulted in the arrest of a 72-year-old sex buyer for third degree assault. In October 2010, a woman reported that a sex buyer had raped her in a Norwalk city park. In all cases, the women were arrested and charged with prostitution, regardless of their injuries or emotional distress. Three of the four women involved had initiated contact with police, to notify them of the attack.