413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

need to be followed and pimps operate independently. However, over the last decade, men have shied
away from referring to themselves as pimps. This is because of a case involving Andrew “Batman” Moore
and Charles “Sir Charles” Pipkins from the early 2000s, which was the first case where pimps were
prosecuted under the RICO statute. They were based in Atlanta and considered to be mentors by those
looking to enter into pimping. According to law enforcement, a lot of pimps have read through the legal
briefs of Batman and Sir Charles and passed the briefs around their social networks:
We haven’t really come across too many true pimps because after that case, after the
Batman case, everything really changed from there in Atlanta. They got scared. They’re
not throwing out that word pimp. It’s “I’m an entrepreneur, a businessman. [I am
running a] modeling agency.” It’s some type of bullshit. (Atlanta Law Enforcement
Official)
One local law enforcement officer got into an argument with one pimp when he asked him to define the
term: “His definition was a professional, intelligent, motivated person. And in court, he’s saying that’s my
definition of a pimp so if you want to call me a pimp, I’m a pimp because I’m a professional, intelligent,
motivated person.”
Atlanta pimps are predominantly African American males in their 30s and 40s and are former “dope
boys” who decided that pimping was less of a hassle. On average, they have three women working for
them at any given time. There is a high turnover rate and some pimps have up to 40 different women
work for them in one calendar year. One local law enforcement officer explained the process:
You hear girls get booted out just for discipline. If they don’t keep an eye on their money,
they’ll be booted. Traded. You get girls that just go renegade so they’ll just bust out and
choose somebody else. That’s most of our girls, they’ll just choose. (Atlanta Law
Enforcement Official)
Pimps often use promises of love or pose as modeling agents in order to entice girls into prostitution and
then occasionally use abusive tactics to maintain control. This often includes enforcing a daily quota,
which can range from $100 a night to $500 a night, seven days a week. As one local prosecutor explained:
They’re actually experts in what we say is the psychology of damaged girls. I think a lot of
times they’ll see a runaway, a girl who has a lot of problems at home, is being abused,
physically or sexually, or another assortment of problems that makes them choose the
street rather than home, and then there’s also the promise of “I’ll take care of you, I’ll love
you.” Just kind of the common lure of somebody to finally treat them well, and a lot of
times we’ll see, “Oh, I just need you to do this one thing for me,” so it’s kind of—it’s not
forced in the sense of “If you don’t do this I’ll kill you,” but I think after this first time it’s
“If you don’t do this, you’re gonna get your ass beat.” (Atlanta Prosecutor)
Bottom girls are often tasked with recruiting and disciplining the new “employees.” Pimps will often
instruct them to recruit from anywhere and everywhere, including train stations, bus stops, bus stations,
clubs, homes, schools, detention facilities, group homes, and homeless shelters. They will also use
Facebook and Myspace to recruit new women and girls. Once a bottom is trusted, the pimp will allow her
to travel without him, known as “going on automatic.” As one law enforcement officer explained, “The
bottom will go up as a babysitter role until the girl is trusted enough where she can go on automatic. If
she’s trusted enough and she goes on automatic, she then can go wherever and the pimp knows that she’s
not going to be any kind of issue.”
Similar to what law enforcement found in the other study sites, pimps rarely condone the consumption of
alcohol and drugs, with the exception of ecstasy which helps lower the women and girls’ inhibitions. This
is to keep their “product street marketable.” The control tends to be more by physical intimidation than
narcotics and alcohol.
Although pimps in Atlanta primarily work on their own and have their own individual “stable,” they often
communicate and look out for one another. They exchange ideas and in some cases, girls. One law
enforcement officer described it as, “it takes a village. Like they’ll be watching like ‘Hey man, your girl was
out of line. I had to get her checked.’ That type of thing.” They often communicate through social media,
particularly Facebook. One law enforcement department in the Atlanta metro area ran a program to show
124