St. Louis, Missouri, a city of about 305,000 along the Mississippi River, has had longstanding, widespread prostitution and sex trafficking problems, since the 1800s if not before. In 1870 the city passed an ordinance legalizing prostitution, requiring brothels and women who were exploited within them to register with the city. The experiment was declared a […]
St. George is a city of approximately 95,000 residents in southwest Utah’s Washington County. Prostitution and sex trafficking (including child sex trafficking) are known problems in the city. To reduce local commercial sex activity, the St. George Police Department has conducted several reverse stings both at the street level and using the web. In November […]
St. Francisville is a town in Louisiana with under 2,000 residents, situated north of Baton Rouge. The St. Francisville Police Department has conducted at least one web-based reverse sting that resulted in the arrest of seven men in 2009. Deputies reported that immediately after the decoy ad was posted, their phones “rang off the hook.” […]
Saint Charles is a suburb located west of Chicago, in DuPage and Kane counties, and has a population of approximately 33,000. Prostitution activity has been well-documented within the city, and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates results in complaints to law enforcement agencies. Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex […]
St. Augustine is a city of approximately 14,000 residents in northeastern Florida’s St. John’s County. Prostitution activity has been reported in the community for at least two decades. It has been linked to more serious crimes, including reports of sex sellers being “beaten and thrown out of vehicles” and targeted for homicide. On at least […]
Springfield is a city of approximately 63,000 residents in Western Oregon, located just east of Eugene, OR, in Lane County, OR. Prostitution has been a persistent problem for city law enforcement in recent years, with commercial sex activity concentrated along Main Street and the city’s downtown area. Among the more serious issues associated with the […]
Springfield is the capital of Illinois and government seat of Sangamon County, IL, and has a population of approximately 113,000 residents. Prostitution has been identified by law enforcement as a substantial problem in the city for decades, and residents have complained to police about prostitution in certain neighborhoods. Among the more serious issues associated with […]
Springfield is a city of approximately 19,000 residents, located in Robertson County, in north-central Tennessee. Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and demand reduction tactics have been used in the city. The Springfield Police Department began conducting street-level reverse stings in 1990. In late 2007, officers collaborated with […]
Springdale is a city of approximately 88,000 residents, located in Washington and Benton Counties in northwest Arkansas. Prostitution activity, particularly transactions arranged online, has been reported for several years. On multiple occasions, the Springdale Police Department has stated that it fields calls for help from both sex buyers and prostituted women who have been robbed […]
Springdale is a town of approximately 3,000 residents, located just outside of Columbia in central South Carolina’s Lexington County. In the fall of 2006, the Springdale Police Department and Lexington County Multi-Agency Narcotics Enforcement Team (NET) collaborated to conduct two street-level reverse stings on Airport Boulevard. The operations used undercover female officers, who posed as […]
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.
