web-stings
Wauwatosa is a suburban city abutting Milwaukee, Wisconsin, of roughly 48,000 residents, located in Milwaukee County, WI. Prostitution and sex trafficking have been identified as problems in the city, and the city has passed local ordinances to attempt to supplement state laws and provide local civil remedies. The first known local prostitution arrests in the […]
Wauseon is a city of approximately 8,000 residents. Located 30 miles west of Toledo, it is the county seat of Fulton County, Ohio. The city has conducted at least one reverse sting targeting consumer-level demand for commercial sex. In 2008, a two-day web-based reverse sting resulted in the arrest of 10 sex buyers. The operation […]
Waukegan is a city of approximately 89,000 residents, located in the northern suburbs of Chicago in Lake County, Illinois. Law enforcement and city residents report that prostitution has been a persistent problem in the area for decades. Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and has therefore been targeted by […]
Waterloo is a city of approximately 69,000 residents, located 50 miles north of Cedar Rapids in Black Hawk County, Iowa. Prostitution and sex trafficking activity have been well-documented in the city and surrounding communities, and in unincorporated areas of the county. This activity and the problems and ancillary crimes it generates results in complaints to law […]
Wasilla is a city of approximately 10,000 residents in Matanuska-Susitna Borough. It is located about 50 miles north of Anchorage, AK. Instances of prostitution and sex trafficking have been documented in Wasilla and surrounding areas in the Mat-Su Valley. Violence against prostituted persons, drugs, and cases of targeted homicide against individuals in the commercial sex […]
Washington, DC is the capital city and federal district of the United States. It is located on the east bank of the Potomac River and shares a border with Virginia and Maryland. It has a population of approximately 713,000 residents and is one of the most visited cities in the U.S. Like most large cities, […]
Warwick is a city in the greater Providence area of Rhode Island, south of Cranston, and has a population of approximately 85,000. Prostitution has been known to occur in the city for decades, particularly indoors in brothels, and the local sex trade generates a wide range of associated crimes. Among the problems associated with commercial […]
Warren is a city in northeast Ohio and is the county seat of Trumbull County. The city has approximately 39,000 residents. Sex trafficking and prostitution have been identified as substantial problems in the city. Over the course of 2011 and 2012, after complaints about prostitution occurring at massage parlors, Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Identification and […]
Walnut Creek is a city of about 70,000 residents in the greater San Francisco Bay area, about 15 miles east of Oakland, California in Contra Costa County. Prostitution is an established problem in the area, including indoor prostitution in storefront brothels. Cases of child sex trafficking have also been well-documented within the city. In their […]
Wailuku is a census-designated place in Maui County, Hawaii with a population of approximately 18,000 residents. Prostitution and sex trafficking are well-documented problems on the islands in general, as well as in Wailuku specifically. To address the consumer-level demand that motivates all sex trafficking, demand-reduction tactics have been employed locally. Since 1985, the Maui County […]
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.
