Portsmouth is a city of approximately 18,000 residents situated along the northern banks of the Ohio River in Scioto County, about 30 miles northwest of Ashland, Kentucky. Commercial sex, including the sex trafficking of minors, has been reported in the community for several decades. Portsmouth has also documented at least one case of prostitution-related homicide; […]
Platte City is a community of approximately 5,000 residents, located 25 miles north of Kansas City in Platte County, Missouri. Prostitution has been well documented in the city for years. For example, in March 2015, an undercover operation in the Platte City area resulted in five arrests on suspicions of prostitution. Platte City Police received […]
Phoenix is the largest commercial hub of and most populous city in Arizona, with approximately 1.625 million residents. It is the sixth largest city in the country, and serves as the county seat of Maricopa County. Situated within a day’s drive from the Mexican border and at the crossroads of several interstate highways, the Phoenix […]
Pasco is a city in Central Washington and has a population of roughly 79,000. It is the largest city and county seat of Franklin County, WA. Instances of prostitution and sex trafficking activity have been well-documented in the city and in surrounding areas for decades. This activity and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates […]
Palm Beach County is a county of approximately 1.5 million residents located on the eastern shore of Florida. Prostitution and sex trafficking are longstanding problems in the area. A wide range of additional crimes associated with the local sex trade have also been documented, including child sex trafficking and prostitution-related homicide, and serial killers who […]
Palm Beach is a community located in Palm Beach County, FL, north of Fort Lauderdale near West Palm Beach, with a population of roughly 9,000 annually (and about 30,000 seasonally). Prostitution and child sex trafficking are documented problems in the city. To address prostitution problems in the city, police have conducted reverse stings. In 1989 […]
Orange County is an area in central Florida with a population of roughly 1,430,000. The major population center of the county is Orlando, and it covers unincorporated areas and smaller cities. Prostitution is related to numerous problems in the county, including child sex trafficking. For example, in February 2022, the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation arrested […]
Omaha, Nebraska is situated along the Missouri River, close to the Iowa border. Omaha is the seat of Douglas County, which contains over one-fourth of the Nebraska’s residents (585,000), most living in Omaha (population 487,000+), the county seat and the state’s largest city. Prostitution has generated numerous community complaints for decades, and sex trafficking has […]
Oklahoma City is located in central Oklahoma and has a population of approximately 650,000 residents. Prostitution has been a well-documented problem in Oklahoma City dating back at least to the 1970s, and sex trafficking cases have occurred since at least the 1980s and continue through the present. Some cases of local sex trade activity have […]
Odessa is a town of approximately 113,000 residents located in Ector County, West Texas, near Midland along Interstate 20. The city is not known for substantial street prostitution, but there have been numerous complaints and reports of indoor prostitution for decades, and cases of children present in residences where prostitution occurred (as well as having […]
Demand Forum is powered by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and directed by Dr. Michael Shively, NCOSE's Senior Advisor on Research and Data Analysis. It was originally developed by Dr. Shively and Abt Associates with grant support from the National Institute of Justice. In January 2020 the website transferred to NCOSE. In January 2021, work began on a new grant from NIJ (#2020-75-CX-0011) to update and expand the content presented on Demand Forum.
