413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

produce money for their operation of the gang, so they choose to get on the pimping. (San
Diego Law Enforcement Official)
The members from the enemy gang sects don’t necessarily share money (the individual pimp keeps the
proceeds from whoever works for him), but they do look out for one another, provide back-up, use each
other’s girls for enforcement, and share travel expenses when traveling. They also trade girls to switch up
the “merchandise.” It is unlikely that one would see other crimes, such as robbery, being run the same
way. As one local law enforcement officer explained,
When you talk about the pimps being from different gangs and coming together to try
and work a girl or put girls out on the street, they are not doing so much for their gang
issues but they are doing it because it is a monetary business. They are doing it for the
money whereas you do not see different gang members getting together to do a robbery.
That is a gang issue; they look at it totally different. But when they are working the girls it
is kind of a common thing. They say, “Hey, this is a business man. You watch my girl
when I am not here and I will watch yours when you are not here on the street.” And that
is how they look at it. So you do not see too much of the crossover on the other crimes
with the pimps, at least I have not seen that. They come together mostly to put girls out
on the street and run it as a business. Any other crimes that are associated with the gangs
we do not really see that. (San Diego Law Enforcement Official)
The majority of the gangs involved in the underground commercial sex economy are African American
gangs, such as the Bloods and Crips. Rarely has law enforcement in San Diego found Hispanic gangs
involved in the UCSE. A main reason is that culturally, it is taboo to sexually assault or “make money off
of your women and girls.” Additionally, they are heavily involved in drug and weapons trafficking:
The majority of our drug trafficking and weapons trafficking deal with Hispanic street
gangs and cartel and then they distribute it out to everybody else. With the prostitution
and the human trafficking, it’s predominantly black gangs. Hispanics, it’s kind of I know
it’s going to occur, but generally it’s sex trafficking, rapes, things like that are taboo within
the Hispanic street gangs as the rules put for them by the prison gangs because the prison
gangs dictate to the street gangs the rules. (San Diego Law Enforcement Official)
The women and girls that pimps in San Diego generally target are similar to those in the other study sites:
vulnerable women and girls from disadvantaged backgrounds. Law enforcement estimated that 80
percent of the women involved in the UCSE are adults and 20 percent are juveniles. One local law
enforcement officer stated, “Most of our profile girls are in a foster home, have low self-esteem and in
many cases are in special education. But we do have the other end of the spectrum; we do get those cases
periodically.” The girls on the other end of the spectrum are often defiant of their home life and looking
for to make their own choices. They are not necessarily getting involved with a pimp to make money, but
rather looking for love and protection.
As stated earlier, pimps in San Diego—particularly young ones—target schools, malls and anywhere else
teenage girls socialize, including continuation schools: 53
We have a lot of continuation schools. Unfortunately, that is the breeding grounds for
these girls. They’re the ones that are from your environments where they’re going to get
recruited from and a lot of the guys that are in these schools are placed there by probation
‘cause they’ve been arrested for several things and they’re trying to get caught up so they
can graduate later or get enough credits to graduate and they’re getting numbers so
they’re recruiting those girls right out of continuation school. (San Diego Law
Enforcement Official)
On average, San Diego pimps have two to three girls working for them. Law enforcement has found that
they often prefer white girls, since they are able to make more money. When recruiting girls, they do not
53 Continuation schools are alternatives to more formal, comprehensive schools. They typically serve at-risk youth, and in some
cases, classes are held in the evening to accommodate work schedules.
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