Woonsocket is a city of approximately 43,000 residents, located along the Massachusetts border in northern Rhode Island. Prostitution has been identified by local residents as a chronic problem in certain areas of the city for decades. Crimes generated from the local sex trade include the serial homicide of prostituted women, sex trafficking of adults and children, assault, kidnapping, drug and weapons offenses, and rape. In a relatively recent case, in October, 2020, a Woonsocket, R.I. man was charged in Boston Federal Court in connection with trafficking five women to engage in prostitution across six states. He was indicted on five counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and one count of transportation of an individual with intent to engage in prostitution. From January 2012 to December 2019, the man had allegedly trafficked five women between Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Las Vegas with the intent that each would engage in prostitution, and used force and threats of force to coerce them to do so. He also transported these women between Massachusetts and Rhode Island and Connecticut with the intent they engage in prostitution. Federal authorities have been investigating the suspect in connection with sex trafficking since the beginning of the year. Police had arrested a woman for driving a car that was reported stolen by the man. When police interviewed her, she told them the man was her pimp, and he had assaulted and raped her at a hotel in Warwick R.I., supplied her with cocaine laced with fentanyl, and beat her with an ice-scraper. She told police she stole his car to get away from him. One of the women police interviewed said several women lived with the man at his Woonsocket Rhode Island home and worked for him “as prostitutes” at a massage parlor in Rhode Island, and then worked at other locations including hotels, casinos throughout the northeast, according to criminal complaint. In 2022, the man pleaded guilty to trafficking five women for prostitution in seven states.

To combat the wide range of crimes arising from the local commercial sex trade, the Woonsocket Police Department has employed several tactics that target their root cause:  consumer level demand for commercial sex. Officers have conducted street-level reverse stings since 1977, at times netting 10 or more men in a single operation. As of early 2000, the WPD may use surveillance cameras to deter offenders and to gather evidence. Once arrested, sex buyers have had their names and other identifying information released to the public.