Palm Desert is a city of about 52,000 residents in California’s Coachella Valley, in Riverside County near Palm Springs. Prostitution is a well-documented problem in Palm Desert, and throughout the county. In February 2015, four women were arrested during a prostitution sting in Palm Desert. Deputies from several specialized investigation teams set up the sting after receiving complaints from residents and businesses about apparent prostitution activity. In September 2016, two women were arrested after an investigation revealed evidence of prostitution at an apartment in a complex south of El Paseo, in the 45-000 block of Lupine Lane. After receiving complaints of suspicious activity, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department served a search warrant, confirmed the allegations of prostitution, and placed a code compliance violation notice at the apartment. Sex trafficking of adults and children has also been a persistent and widespread local problem.

To combat the consumer-level demand for commercial sex that drives all sex trafficking, demand-reduction tactics have been employed locally. For example, in 2020 nine people were arrested at a Palm Desert hotel on suspicion of misdemeanor prostitution, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. The arrests were made in the 74-800 block of Country Club Drive as part of a sex trafficking demand reduction program. The Riverside County Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force worked with personnel from the sheriff’s department station in Palm Desert on the operation. The arrests were made after officers went undercover and placed decoy advertisements on sites commonly used for soliciting prostitution. Suspects were arrested upon arrival after agreeing to pay for sex. The task force also arrested four women who allegedly responded to undercover officers for negotiated acts of prostitution. The identities of the arrested individuals were included in news releases. All subjects were booked and released from the Banning jail, according to the sheriff’s department. In September 2020, a reverse sting resulted in 13 arrests of sex buyers in Palm Desert. The operation involved law enforcement placing “decoy” classified advertisements on websites “commonly used for the solicitation of online prostitution,” the sheriff’s department said. During the sting, 12 men and one woman were arrested on misdemeanor prostitution charges.