Springfield is a city in western Ohio with a population of approximately 60,000 residents. It is the county seat of Clark County and is located between the cities of Columbus and Dayton along Interstate 70. Prostitution activity has been well-documented in the city and surrounding communities, as well as in unincorporated areas of the county. For example, in 2009, a Columbus man was accused of abducting a prostituted woman from Cincinnati and transporting her to Columbus against her will. The offender kidnapped the prostituted woman in Cincinnati and after a few days traveled to Springfield to drop off an additional prostituted woman. The man was also accused of raping the woman at an apartment in Springfield. The offender then took the two women to a gas station where one of the Cincinnati woman was able to escape and call the police. The offender had been previously arrested by the Springfield Police Department in 2008 on charges of loitering to engage in solicitation. According to court documents, in the 2008 arrest, the sex buyer was “trying to get her to go with him to Columbus in order to engage in prostitution there.” The offender was also indicted for promoting prostitution in Franklin County in March 2009 and pleaded not guilty to that charge. In regard to the Springfield charge, the offender was arrested and booked in Clark County Jail on a $100,000 bond. Problems in the city associated with prostitution include homicides of those who sell sex. Residents often complain to police about prostitution in the city, and in response, the Springfield Police Department has targeted the buyers of sex in reverse stings. For example, in 2011, officials reported an increase in solicitation and prostitution arrests resulting from reverse stings, from an annual average of 30 arrests in 2007 and 2008 to an annual average of 60 arrests in 2009 and 2010. Additionally, officers stated that investigations had begun to focus more on the sex buyers rather than the prostituted women, as Springfield police believed that the individuals purchasing commercial sex were a more severe issue.

Loss of employment is also a consequence of sex buying in the city. For example, in 2014, the former Clark State Performing Arts Center executive director was arrested for misdemeanor soliciting prostitution. According to reports, the sex buyer admitted to using his work computer to browse prostitution advertisements on Backpage.com as he had done on and off for several years. He allegedly left work and drove to Dayton to meet with an undercover officer posing as a prostituted woman on Backpage.com, and after his arrival at the agreed upon location was arrested by undercover officers. As a result of his arrest, he was immediately terminated from his position at the community college for “gross misconduct” pursuant to Clark State policies. The sex buyer’s identity was included in reports from local news sources.

In response to a survey conducted in 2021 by the NCOSE team for a National Institute of Justice grant to update and expand Demand Forum (Grant #2020-75-CX-0011), representatives from the Springfield Police Department reported that they have also arrested sex buyers during investigations or other police enforcement activities that did not involve reverse stings.