413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Chapter 6
Networks, Relationships, and Management
of Pimping
Introduction
Relationships and networks are essential to pimps. Not only is the internal business sustained through the
control of one or more women, pimps also benefit from networks with other pimps, lucrative relationships
with legal businesses, and the blind eye of complicit law enforcement officers. According to Weitzer
(2009, 229), “The management of prostitution is one of the most invisible aspects of the trade,” and little
research exists on the methods employed by pimps to develop, manage, and network their businesses on a
daily basis. Levitt and Venkatesh’s (2007) two-year ethnography of pimping and prostitution in Chicago
provides transactional data of how pimps managed their business, and Raphael and Myers-Powell’s
(2009) interviews with five former pimps reveal the extent of their management over their businesses,
with their control extending over their workers’ living arrangements, transportation within and between
cities, and wages. However, few other studies provide primary source data regarding the management
structures and networks that pimps use to facilitate sex work.
This chapter seeks to contribute to current research on the establishment, structure, and organization of
pimp-managed businesses through data collected from interviews with 73 individuals that have been
charged, convicted, and incarcerated for crimes related to facilitating commercial sex. We first consider
the actors involved in pimp-managed commercial sex. Then we examine employee 58 recruitment
practices, the rules and regulations imposed by pimps including methods of discipline, the networks
between pimps and their business competitors, and the role of travel in expanding networks and accessing
new markets. Finally, we discuss the role of legal businesses and complicit law enforcement officers in the
UCSE.
58 Throughout this chapter, the men and women who were compelled to sell commercial sex acts for respondents are referred to as
“employees” based on the format of the study’s interview protocol, which approached pimping and its related structure and networks
as a business.
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