Tarrant County is situated in the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area. The county seat is Fort Worth and as of 2019, its population was over 2.1 million. It is Texas’ third-most populous county and the 15th-most populous in the United States. Like most large population centers, human trafficking and prostitution activity in the area are well documented. For example, in 2013 two Tarrant County men were sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for sex trafficking. One man pleaded guilty to one count of sex trafficking of a minor, and the other pleaded guilty to one count of sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. Investigators had learned that a 16-year-old girl had been sexually exploited in prostitution for a suspect while she was working as a stripper at a Fort Worth night club. The suspect posted advertisements of her on websites and drove her to hotel rooms in the DFW area and directed her to have sex with men for money. The offender took all of the proceeds and reinvested a portion of it to sustain the criminal enterprise (e.g., food, clothing, condoms, hotel rooms). The second trafficker had exploited a 19-year-old woman in essentially the same way, and the victim testified that she was afraid to leave the offenders who had choked her, pulled her hair, poured drinks on her head and threatened to harm her – while pushing her to work longer hours and acquire more clients. The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, as well as the North Texas Trafficking Task Force, including the Arlington, Dallas and Fort Worth police departments.

Among the tactics used to address both prostitution and sex trafficking are those that target consumer level demand for commercial sex. In 2018, a new Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office Intelligence Unit had made sex trafficking its top target. The unit conducted “john” suppression stings, where they targeted men trying to purchase sex. In August, 2018, thirty male suspects were arrested and charged with prostitution as part of a joint operation between the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office and Arlington Police Department. The sting focused on people soliciting sex, and was affiliated with the National Johns Suppression Initiative, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.

Those arrested for attempting to pay to sexually abuse children can be charged with seriously felonies, including human trafficking and sexual abuse of a minor. For example, in March, 2021, a joint undercover human trafficking operation resulted in six arrests in Tarrant County. Undercover detectives from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office and collaborating agencies conducted a joint human trafficking operation to target child sexual abusers. Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office detectives utilized personal advertisements, covert social media and communication platforms to communicate with potential suspects seeking to sexual access to a minor under the age of seventeen. During the operation, after soliciting sex from undercover detectives posing as minors, six suspects traveled to an agreed location to meet them. They were arrested, jailed, and their identities disclosed to the media.

Several cities within Tarrant County also focus on combating demand. For example, the Fort Worth Police Department began conducting large-scale street-level reverse stings in the early 1980s. One operation in 1986 netted 81 male sex buyers in a single sweep. Shaming is also an important element of Fort Worth police response to combating commercial sex sales. In 2007, a program called “John TV” was introduced, and police have posted the names and photographs of people arrested for solicitation on both the city’s web site and on its community cable TV.

Loss of employment is also a consequence of buying sex in the county. For example, in the fall of 2021, a Tarrant County audio and video contractor was arrested on multiple charges of criminal solicitation of a minor. According to reports, the offender used his position as an audio-visual sub-contractor through a local audio-visual company to contact young girls in church congregations and hire them under the guise of being an intern. The offender’s position allowed him to travel to multiple church congregations throughout the Metroplex. According to investigators, the offender was employed by Epic Resource Group of Dallas and “displayed a pattern over several years of grooming interns then trying to get them to perform sexual acts, including intercourse, oral sex, masturbation, stripping and taking nude photographs. Three of his suspected victims attended campuses of Compass Church, and at least one, the victim named in the affidavit, was a minor.” Officials at Compass Church fired him in 2016 after a woman who was over 18 accused him of making sexual advances, but he was rehired after the victim left the area. The investigation was initiated after one of the victims reported the incident to a camp counselor. As a result of his arrest, officials said they have banned the offender from all Compass campuses and that his employer has been notified.