Muscogee County, Georgia is situated along the Alabama border, and has a population of approximately 200,000. Fort Benning, a major military base with roughly 120,000 residents, lies within the county. The city of Columbus serves as the county seat. Prostitution and sex trafficking cases in the county date back to the 1940s, if not earlier, […]
Big Spring is the county seat of Howard County, Texas, and has a population of about 26,000 residents. Prostitution activity in the area has a long, well-documented history. Prostitution became common on the Texas frontier after the Civil War, thriving at army forts, in cow towns and railroad towns, and other settlements. From the late […]
Weber County, Utah is the state’s fourth-most populous county, most living in the city of Ogden, the home of Weber State University. Police have investigated child sex trafficking rings operating within the county (e.g., in Ogden, Riverdale, West Haven), local prostitution involving adults has been widespread, and there have been cases of homicides of prostituted women. […]
Rockland County is located roughly 20 miles north of New York City, and is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River. Its population is over 325,000, and the county contains several small cities and towns including Clarkstown, Spring Valley, and Ramapo. Prostitution and sex trafficking rings are known to operate in […]
Douglas County contains over one-fourth of the Nebraska’s residents (566,000), most living in Omaha (population 480,000), the county seat and the state’s largest city. The county also includes unincorporated areas and smaller cities and towns, such as Ralston, Bennington, and Waterloo. Since prostitution and sex trafficking operations cross jurisdictional boundaries, many of the law enforcement […]
Skagit County is located in northern Washington state, and has a population of approximately 131,000 residents. It is situated directly north of Seattle, and the county’s northern border is Whatcom County. The county seat and largest city is Mt. Vernon (pop. approximately 35,000). The city of Mt. Vernon has had street prostitution and indoor prostitution […]
Whatcom County is a county of approximately 230,000 residents in Northern Washington state. It is situated directly north of Seattle, and the county’s northern border is the US border with the Canadian province of British Columbia. The county seat and largest city is Bellingham, WA. Research on the history of Whatcom County found that prostitution […]
Lake County is located on the northwestern edge of Indiana, and is considered within the outer suburbs of the greater Chicago metro area. It is the second-most populous county in Indiana (with approximately 499,000 residents), and its county seat is the city of Crown Point. Among the other cities of note within the county is […]
Mesa County is a county of approximately 156,000 residents located along Colorado’s border with Utah, west of Denver along Interstate 70. The county seat and largest city is Grand Junction, CO. Prostitution and sex trafficking are well-documented problems in the county, and have generated numerous complaints by community member to the police. For example, in […]
San Luis Obispo County is located roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. News reports of prostitution within the county date as far back as the early 20th century, and more recently, sex trafficking of adults and children has been documented. For example, in March, 2020, an investigation revealed evidence that a 15 […]
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.
