Beckley, West Virginia is a small city of less than 17,000 residents. Prostitution and sex trafficking have been well documented local problems for decades. Community complaints about prostitution have led police to conduct prostitution operations. Reasoning that reducing demand would cause the market to contract and reduce the need for a supply to be present, […]
Baltimore is the largest city in Maryland, with over 575,000 residents. Street prostitution has been a persistent and visible problem in the city for decades. This activity, as well as indoor prostitution, which is facilitated online, and the problems and ancillary crimes they generate, result in complaints to law enforcement agencies from residents and businesses. […]
Aurora is a city of approximately 180,000 residents, located about 40 miles west of Chicago. It is the second most populous city in Illinois, and it boundaries extend into Kane, DuPage, Will and Kendall counties. Prostitution activity has been well-documented throughout the region, and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates results in complaints to law […]
Atlanta, home to about 500,000 residents, is the capital of Georgia and the county seat of Fulton County. Atlanta was one of the “early adopters” of tactics used to combat demand for commercial sex. The city has been a pioneer in public education and awareness campaigns focused on demand for trafficked sex and prostitution. Reverse […]
Athens is a city of approximately 127,000 residents, located 70 miles east of Atlanta in Athens-Clarke County, Georgia. Prostitution and sex trafficking are well-established problems in the area, exacerbated by the proximity to Atlanta, a key hub in domestic and international sex trafficking circuits in the U.S. According to a supervisor within the Athens-Clarke County […]
Asheville is a city of roughly 94,000 residents in western North Carolina, in Buncombe County. Local prostitution generates numerous complaints to police and is linked to a number of other serious crimes, including child endangerment, assault, and homicide. Street-level and web-based reverse stings have occurred in Asheville since at least 2004, according to police surveyed […]
Appleton is a city of approximately 75,000 residents, located 100 miles north of Milwaukee in Outagamie County, Wisconsin. Prostitution and child sex trafficking have been well-documented in the city and surrounding communities. Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and has therefore been targeted by local law enforcement agencies as […]
Anne Arundel County is a county of approximately 590,000 residents, located south of Baltimore in Maryland. Its county seat, also the capital of the state, is Annapolis. Situated along Route 295, it contains a cluster of towns and unincorporated areas that are known for prevalent street- and hotel-based prostitution and sex trafficking (e.g, Laurel, Jessup, […]
Annapolis is a city of almost 40,000 residents located along the Chesapeake Bay, just south of Baltimore. It is the capital of Maryland and county seat of Anne Arundel County. It is home to the U.S. Naval Academy. Prostitution and child sex trafficking have been well documented problems in the city for at least five decades. […]
Anchorage is a unified municipal consolidated city-borough and Alaska’s largest city, with a population of approximately 294,000. It is located in the south-central part of the state, well below the Arctic Circle. Anchorage residents comprise more than a third of the state’s population. Anchorage has a long history of widespread prostitution. Prostitution and its harms […]
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.
