Stevenson Ranch is a census-designated place in Los Angeles County, CA, and has a population of approximately 19,000 residents. The community is located in the Santa Clarita Valley. Prostitution and sex trafficking activity have been well-documented in the city and surrounding areas. This activity and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates result in complaints to law enforcement agencies from residents and businesses. Among the more serious problems associated with commercial sex in the area include child sex trafficking.

To combat prostitution and sex trafficking in the area, local law enforcement agencies have targeted consumer-level demand for commercial sex, which provides the revenue stream driving all commercial sex and trafficking. For example, in August 2018, a reverse sting in Castaic and Stevenson Ranch resulted in 11 male sex buyers being arrested on suspicion of prostitution-related charges. Four male sex buyers were arrested after they allegedly solicited sex acts from an undercover sheriff’s deputy walking on Castaic Road. Another seven male sex buyers were arrested after they responded to sexually suggestive ads placed on several internet sites. The male sex buyers agreed to meet undercover sheriff’s deputies at a hotel for the purposes of sex. The 11 men were arrested and booked at the sheriff’s Santa Clarita Valley Station. The Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force and deputies from the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station ran the operation, and collaborated with task force partners from the Los Angeles Unified School District Police Department and the Los Angeles County Probation Department.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Human Trafficking Bureau houses the L.A. Regional Human Trafficking Task Force, the nation’s largest co-located human trafficking task force. The task force is a collaboration of federal, state, county and local law enforcement; a social service agency; and non-government and community-based organizations investigating and serving the needs of commercially exploited adults and minors victimized for the purpose of sex and labor. The LA Regional Human Trafficking Task Force brings together systems and disciplines to address victims’ needs through a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach. The task force employs a regionalized strategy that crosses jurisdictional boundaries to identify and rescue victims while aggressively pursuing sex traffickers and sex buyers.