Southaven is a city of approximately 50,000 residents, situated in the southern suburbs of Memphis in DeSoto County, Mississippi. Prostitution has been identified by police and others as generating a wide range of problems in the area, including johns responding to online ads being shot and robbed.  The Southaven Police Department has conducted at least three web-based reverse stings using undercover officers, in an effort to reduce consumer-level demand. Arrested sex buyers have also had their identities reported in the media and often face fines.

Loss of employment is another consequence of buying sex that has occurred within the city. In November, 2017, a member of the Southaven Board of Alderman was arrested by the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office and booked into the county jail on charges related to procuring prostitution. He had communicated with a woman and promised her money in exchange for sex. A search warrant based on that charge led to the man also being charged with transporting child pornography. In December, 2017, the alderman from Southaven resigned was arrested and charged with procuring a prostituted person. The offender quit his post shortly after pleading not guilty in federal court in Oxford. An indictment charged the 57-year-old man with bringing computer files with “visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct” across state lines from Tennessee into Mississippi in Nov. 2017.