South Middleton Township is a municipality of about 15,000 residents in Cumberland County, located in southern Pennsylvania. Cumberland County is included in the Harrisburg–Carlisle, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county is known to have been on regional sex trafficking circuits since the 1980s, if not before, and local prostitution has been a persistent problem, particularly along interstate trucking routes. Situated along I-81, the area has been described as “an artery  for drug and sex trafficking,” and county residents have reported spikes in prostitution and sex trafficking in and around the area’s four major truck stops.

At least one web-based reverse sting has occurred in the township. In April 2023, eleven men were taken into custody during a prostitution sting, called “Operation Impact Demand 4,” in South Middleton Township. The effort was part of a joint Human Trafficking Investigation conducted by the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office, along with Pennsylvania State Police, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department, and Hampden Township Police Department. Investigators used undercover officers to meet men in a hotel in South Middleton, after these men contacted officers and arranged to meet them at the location to engage in sex for financial compensation. Misdemeanor patronizing prostitution charges were filed for all but one of the men, whose identities were publicly disclosed. Although this was the fourth operation in the past year, investigators have found a high demand still remaining across the Commonwealth. The Cumberland County District Attorney explained:

“Since we began these operations targeting sex buyers who drive the demand for commercial sex, we have arrested 36 individuals. After each operation, I warn that the next ad individuals participating in these crimes answer in Cumberland County may result in their arrest. Every single dollar that a sex trafficker makes comes out of the wallet of a sex buyer. They are the ones driving sex trafficking by putting money into the hands of the sex traffickers who exploit the women and men trapped in this existence. We are going to continue these operations – so buyer beware.”