413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Street and Internet
Similar to the other cities in this study, street and online sex work are the most prevalent and visible
venues within the UCSE in San Diego. 51 These venues contain pimp-controlled and non-pimp-controlled
individuals. Whereas street prostitution was the primary venue just five or six years ago, the Internet
changed the entire UCSE landscape in San Diego. As one law enforcement officer stated, “I think that [the
Internet] is the driver as to why this is becoming such a huge issue, because there’s probably only five
places where you have street walkers in San Diego, maybe five or six that we actually have street
prostitution and they’re very limited in areas.” The sex work conducted between the street and online
remains fluid. Law enforcement noted that Internet ads might be high one moment and then, all of the
sudden, there are bursts of activity on the “blade.” 52
Pimps are believed to feel safer posting ads online, as opposed to having their women and girls working
the street. In-calls were considered the safest method since the john has to come to the sex workers. Outcalls
used to be more popular; however, law enforcement commonly conducted out-call stings, where the
sex worker would come to them. Due to this, pimps eventually learned not to send women on out-calls.
However, as law enforcement continues to implement new tactics, pimps continue to adapt:
And they’ve adapted which is really kind of the most interesting part of it is that when we
first started doing this, we could [conduct] out-calls where girls would come to us and we
would set up car dates where we would meet them and do car dates and it was just a dime
a dozen and we couldn’t do ‘em fast enough because we would line up so many dates and
then after about a year of doing that, we got to where we couldn’t get a girl to come out for
a date. They adapted to the tactics that we were doing, they knew what to look for. They
had already been doing a lot of counter surveillance with us anyway, but now they
completely changed their M.O., as far as they would only go to very nice hotels. We would
get a hotel room, we couldn’t get anybody to come or before we could almost line ‘em up
and so it was very interesting to see how they adapted to our tactics and what we were
doing and we had to change things. (San Diego Law Enforcement Official)
Law enforcement has come to rely on certain websites, such as Craigslist and Backpage, to help identify
women and girls who may be trafficked. Scouring these websites requires little manpower and resources
to find individuals who might be underage or pimp-controlled. Several stakeholders felt that shutting
down the “Adult Encounters” section of Craigslist made their jobs more difficult:
Getting rid of Craigslist.com was actually a disservice to law enforcement because they
were cooperating. They are a legitimate business but they just have this illegitimate side.
So they were cooperating with us in many ways and when they went away it is kind of like
the hydra, when we took one away five more popped up. (Federal Law Enforcement
Official)
I know that there’s a lot of talk in trying to shut down Backpage and that kind of stuff. I’m
actually against that ‘cause if you shut down Backpage, you shut down those things that
we use, it’ll only go further underground. If it went completely underground, we would
never find it and Backpage, at least we can continue to target it. … and if you do that, if
you shut it down, it’ll only go further underground. (San Diego Law Enforcement Official)
51 Due to the size and complexity of the street and online markets, this section will include sub-headings. Most of the sub-sections
will focus on pimps and their business structures.
52 A public location where sex workers congregate and solicit clients.
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