web-stings
Huntington Beach is a seaside suburb of Los Angeles, with a population of about 200,000. Indoor prostitution and sex trafficking have been identified as a key concerns in the city for decades. In the late 1980s, for example, three adult men were arrested and charged with attempting to recruit minor girls to be sexually exploited […]
Huntington is a city located along the Ohio River in West Virginia. It is the second largest city in the state, with approximately 46,000 residents. Prostitution has been reported in the community for decades, and has generated complaints to law enforcement and city officials. In recent years, the opiod crisis has been cited as a […]
Howard’s Grove is a small city of about 3,000 residents located south of Green Bay, Wisconsin near Sheboygan. To our knowledge, Howard’s Grove has not conducted typical reverse stings, using a police decoy or an online decoy advertisement to entice sex buyers and gather evidence necessary for arrest. However, there has been one instance of […]
Howard County contains approximately 335,000 residents, and is situated in central Maryland between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The Howard County Police Department (HCPD) frequently conducts reverse stings at specific locations within the county, and for descriptions of HCPD-led stings in Columbia, Elkridge, Jessup, Laurel, and North Laurel, see individual site pages. Countywide anti-demand efforts began […]
Houston is one of the largest cities in the United States, with over 2.3 million residents, located in Harris County, TX. The large metropolis extends to Galveston Bay in the Gulf of Mexico. Commercial sex continues to occur in a wide variety of venues including streets, hotels, and nightclubs, and storefront brothels (such as nail salons and […]
Houma is a city of approximately 33,000 residents, located 60 miles southwest of New Orleans in Louisiana. It is the largest city in, and government seat of Terrebonne Parish. Prostitution and sex trafficking activity have been well-documented in the city and surrounding communities, and in unincorporated areas of the parish. This activity and the problems […]
Houghton is a city of about 8,000 residents located in a remote area of northwestern Michigan. Through 2012, at least one reverse sting had been conducted in the city in an effort to address the demand component of prostitution. In March 2022, the Houghton County Sheriff’s Office and the U.P. HOST (Human Oppression Strike Team) […]
Horry County is a county along the northeast coast of South Carolina, approximately 100 miles north of Charleston. It has approximately 351,000 residents, with its population concentrated around the cities of Conway and Myrtle Beach. This activity and its ancillary crimes have resulted in in complaints from residents and businesses to local law enforcement. Among the […]
Honolulu is Hawaii’s largest city with a population of over 330,000 residents, and is located on the island of Oahu. Prostitution has been a visible and persistent problem in the city for decades, resulting in complaints to law enforcement. Sex trafficking has also become a growing concern in recent years with numerous adult and child […]
Hollywood is a city in southeast Florida located within Broward County and has a population of approximately 150,000 residents. Prostitution and sex trafficking are well-documented in the city and surrounding areas. This activity and its ancillary crimes have resulted in complaints to the police from residents and businesses. In addition, targeted assaults, rapes, and homicides […]
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.
