Reverse Stings

Reverse stings—also known as “john sting” or “john operation”—are the most commonly used anti-demand tactic, having been conducted in at least 930 U.S. cities and counties.  These stings are police operations with women officers serving as decoys posing as women engaged in prostitution, awaiting approaches by men attempting to purchase sex.

There are three main types of reverse stings:

1. Street-level
Here police officers pose as women engaged in street-level prostitution. On average, the law enforcement support team is comprised of about seven officers for each decoy. Smaller departments may borrow female officers from another department if they don’t have enough officers to serve as effective decoys. Locations are usually chosen on the basis of complaints from residents or businesses and sometimes from police observations about problem areas. Some police departments conduct reverse stings near venues that draw large numbers of men, such as truck stops or male-oriented events (such as business conventions, sporting events, or during hunting season). The average reverse sting runs about four hours and results in about one to two arrests per hour, per decoy.
2. Web-based
Web-based reverse stings involve police posting online decoy ads and setting up a reverse sting at a hotel or apartment. A variation of this approach is police responding to real online ads and replacing prostituted persons with police decoys, then continuing to take calls from johns on the survivors’ phone. Alternatively, some web-based reverse stings involve women police decoys responding to online ads placed by johns seeking to buy sex. To learn more about web reversals, click here.
3. Brothel-based
In this type of reverse sting, police investigate brothels, make arrests, replace brothel staff with decoys, and continue fielding calls and walk-ins from johns in order to make arrests. This is not a widespread tactic, so we have not devoted a separate webpage to it. The tactic is described in the basic reverse sting overview below.

Resources for Reverse Stings

In our National Assessment project, we observed reverse stings in several cities, interviewed or surveyed nearly 200 police officers about these operations, and collected over 4,000 documents through daily web searches. We have gathered information on over 3,700 reverse stings occurring since 1964 in over 930 U.S. cities and counties.

Overview of Reverse Stings in the U.S.

Police Magazine Articles on Planning and Safety for Reverse Stings:

Reverse Sting Tactical Plan

Police Department Press Releases on Reverse Stings

Reports About Police Decoys and Reverse Sting Operations

News Reports on Early Use of Reverse Sting Operations

  • News report on 1974 reverse sting:

  • “Prostitution police focus on the men.” July 13, 1974, the Baltimore Sun. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.