413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Internet and Street
Similar to what was reported in the study sites, individuals involved in sex work on the street were also
often advertised on the Internet. However, the main difference between those who worked only on the
street versus those who worked both the street and Internet involved level of drug use. Kansas City is
known as a transit city for a number of underground economies, especially drugs. There are a number of
open air drug markets (mainly crack cocaine and heroin) in certain areas of the city, which is usually
accompanied by street prostitution, particularly involving drug-addicted individuals. Although drug use is
not exclusive to individuals working on the street, it is more prevalent among that population:
Most of the Internet based girls, I mean they’ll use drugs too, but not to the extent that
the street girls will use them, street girls are basically doing a trick to get a rock, they get
high, when that high comes down, they’ll do another trick to get another rock and it’s
basically just a vicious cycle. The other girls plan ahead a little bit more. (Kansas City Law
Enforcement Official)
As for the going rate on the street for a sex act, those who are heavily addicted to drugs will charge an
average of $20 for anything. This would allow them to purchase a rock of crack cocaine, which has cost
the same amount—$20—for the last several decades. Additionally, women and girls that work on the
street are more likely to be arrested by law enforcement for prostitution:
Respondent: We probably arrest, on average, 40 people a month [for prostitution].
Interviewer: And are most of them repeat
Respondent: Most of the guys [pimps] are not repeat, most of the girls are. We can run
the girls have 50, 60 priors for prostitution, we arrest them on the street. When we do
hotel stings, it’s usually less than that, you get a lot of priors but not as many as the street
girls. (Kansas City Law Enforcement Official)
The Internet has brought the biggest changes to the Kansas City underground commercial sex economy.
Advertisements used to be found solely in the local weekly newspaper; however, those ads have moved
over to the Internet, as one law enforcement officer explained, “Obviously the biggest change is going to
be printed advertisements versus computer. Secondly, chat rooms dovetail right off the computers and
Backpage with the Internet ads. So that’s been our biggest leap has just been the way they advertise and
how they communicate with each other.” Craigslist and Backpage are being used by out-of-town pimps
and independent sex workers to post ads before traveling to Kansas City. This way they can have dates
already arranged by the time they arrive in Kansas City.
As for those individuals who advertise, or are advertised by a pimp, on the Internet, prices are
significantly higher than what is asked for on the street. Similar to the other cities in this study, Internet
prices are by the hour, whereas street prices are typically by the sex act. Internet prices range from $100
to $300 per hour. They do not charge “escort agency prices” which can be upwards of $1,000 per hour:
I want to say the prices are relatively the same. On the Backpage it’s from, $100 to $300
for an hour but it’s right around in there. But it’s not really changed a whole lot lately.
What we do also find is that since they’re posting on the Internet, the Internet is a little
more active with girls. Girls will get their own escort page that advertises them. There’s
chat rooms not just for the working girls but for the guys that visit the girls, the johns will
go talk about the girls, that’s a pretty good resource for us. I’m sure the guys that go there
know that we frequent that also. But it’s a big help for us—trying to locate where girls
work or trying to figure out what activities they perform. A girl says I just do massages,
we’ve got reviews that you do all this other stuff, it just kind of helps on the investigation.
We see some of those things, add them to case files when we’re submitting cases also.
(Kansas City Law Enforcement Official)
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