Fort Smith is a city of approximately 90,000 residents, situated along Arkansas’ northwest border with Oklahoma in Sebastian County. Prostitution has been associated with a number of local problems and has generated complaints to police. Among the more serious issues associated with the city’s commercial sex market is child sex trafficking. For example, in 2010, a Fort Smith resident was convicted of sex trafficking two underage girls in the city using online advertisements.

Consumer level demand provides the revenue stream for all prostitution and sex trafficking, and has therefore been targeted by local law enforcement agencies as a strategy for prevention and response. Street-level reverse stings have been conducted as a means of combating prostitution and sex trafficking since at least 2000. In one such case in 2009, a man was arrested, charged a fine, and sentenced to 10 days in jail. When male sex buyers are charged for solicitation, they are also subject to public identity disclosure, wherein their names, ages, addresses, and sometimes pictures are published in local news outlets. Sex buyers in Fort Smith have also been caught in web-base reverse stings conducted by local police. For example, in 2010, one such reversal resulted in the arrest of six male sex buyers on solicitation charges, including two public school employees. Other tactics to combat demand for commercial sex in the city include public education, SOAP orders, seizure of vehicles used in a crime, and the use of surveillance cameras used to gather evidence against sex buyers.

Since 2009, the Fort Smith Police Department has also had a unit dedicated to street crimes, such as prostitution. Community involvement is another resource used to fight prostitution in the community. In 2008, neighborhood associations began working with local police to target crimes such as prostitution which became a nuisance to local residents. Through this partnership, residents often alert police to sex trafficking activity in their area, which can lead to sting operations and arrests.

Loss of employment is also a consequence of buying sex in the city. For example, in 2010, a former Fort Smith junior high school principal was arrested during a reverse prostitution sting. According to reports, the former principal was arrested for soliciting prostitution after he had attempted to solicit sex from an undercover female officer in exchange for $175. The former principal resigned from his position upon being released from jail. In 2013, a former Fort Smith city employee was arrested during a web-based prostitution sting after attempting to solicit sex from an undercover female officer online. As a result of his arrest, the former Fort Smith Port Authority / former city director resigned from his position. In 2015, a former Fort Smith police officer was arrested on charges of soliciting prostitution. According to reports, a prostituted woman being interviewed for an unrelated crime, claimed that she had been solicited for sex acts by a Fort Smith officer in exchange for $100 on multiple occasions. The two had allegedly met when the former officer arrested the prostituted woman and transported her to the local jail. Months later, on an unrelated call, the former officer came in contact with the woman again, wherein he solicited her for sex acts in exchange for money. The officer was seen to have withdrawn money on two separate occasions on the nights the pair arranged to meet. Investigators are in possession of those Facebook conversations and still ATM photos from Arvest Bank showing the former officer withdrawing $100 on two separate occasions with another person in the passenger seat of his car. As a result of his arrest, the sex buyer turned himself in to officials, and subsequently resigned from his position. Documents show that the former officer had been employed by the Fort Smith Police Department for eleven years.