Owings Mills is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, MD. The community is a Baltimore suburb of approximately 35,000 residents. Instances of prostitution and sex trafficking have been documented in the community and surrounding areas. For example, during numerous reverse sting operations in both Baltimore County and neighboring Howard County male sex buyers from Owings Mills have been arrested for soliciting prostitution. Among the more serious crimes associated with the community’s commercial sex market is child sex trafficking.

In their efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex in the community, local law enforcement agencies have apprehended sex buyers and sex traffickers and released their identities to local media outlets. For example, in 2021, a prosecution by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maryland convicted an Owings Mills man on charges of sex trafficking of a child, enticement of a minor to engage in prostitution, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, and distribution of a controlled substance. According to court documents, the offender, who had entered the county illegal from Guatemala had caused more than eight individuals, including minors, to engage in commercial sex acts for his own financial benefit by means of force, fraud, and coercion beginning from at least 2016 until his arrest in May of 2019. Trial testimony confirmed that the man knew that one of his victims was 16 years old when he first forced her to engage in commercial sex acts. Evidence proved that nearly all of the victims abused in commercial sex acts suffered from serious substance abuse disorders, including addictions to heroin and crack cocaine. As a result his conviction, the offender faced a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison for sex trafficking of a minor and for enticement of a minor to engage in prostitution; a minimum mandatory sentence of 15 years and up to life in prison for each of four counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion; and a maximum of 20 years in prison for distribution of controlled substances. The case was investigated by the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force, formed in 2007 to discover and rescue victims of human trafficking while identifying and prosecuting offenders. Members include federal, state and local law enforcement, as well as victim service providers and local community members.