413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

ight now. They didn’t learn nothing from me, they are just going to the times and life.
That’s what it is. Because drugs is a dead end street. You get money from selling drugs but
now I got to take 500 of that and take it to the other drug man who is the drug lord. If I
am letting her do what she does, and I am a part of her life, everything she make we can
go spend it. (E3)
Other interviewees observed how different illegal economies could go in and out of “fashion” with youth.
One respondent explained his own childhood experience with crime:
In my generation, my age range, it’s like there are fashions … When I was 14, everyone
wanted to be a gang member. I was past that, I didn’t really care about that. Once I got
past that, I wanted something new. Saw my brother pimping, and I wanted to try that out.
Two years later, it was the new fashion. Everyone wanted to do the pimping thing … it
became a trend. Little by little, everyone was doing it. When everyone started doing it, it
turned into girls talking about how they can’t catch a date … Prices decreased because
there are so many people out there. …
When I was still in high school at the time, I had a lot of older homies. I am leaving the
school gate and all the older people were at the gate…
At first, I was doing robberies. I was into the robberies and that was another thing that
everyone was into. It wasn’t that it stopped, it’s just that time increased for it. I got caught
and I was like 14 years old, and I had been in juvenile hall a couple times, so if I got
caught again it would be six years in [juvenile detention]. I was still young, so it was time
for a new crime. (E13)
Gang Involvement
The growing involvement of gangs in sex work has also been observed as an important change in sex
market networks. Levitt and Venkatesh (2007) found that gang members were closely intertwined with
sex work, but not as pimps. Rather, they served as protection for independent sex workers. The concept of
hiring or paying gangs in return for protection during commercial sex was also present in Raphael and
Myers-Powell’s (2010) interviews with 25 ex-pimps: the female pimps in their sample made large
payments to gangs in return for security, and several of the male pimps mentioned gang involvement,
organization, or coercion into pimping.
Some respondents corroborated the movement of gang involvement into sex trafficking and sex work.
Offenders observed that gang activity historically centered on the drug economy, rather than the sex
market. One respondent explained that while he was working in sex trafficking, “I was part of a gang, but
all the members were involved in selling dope, not pimping hos” (D16). Despite historical separations
between pimping and gangs, respondents observed increasing direct gang involvement in the
underground sex market: “Back in the ’90s, ’80s, they have their own separation. Back then it was pimps
and girls; gangs do their own thing … Gangs now, they tend to do whatever makes money. Whatever can
contribute to the establishment” (E15).
Respondents suggested that increased gang involvement could change the tactics and rules commonly
used in pimping: “Some places where people used to gang bang. They turned into pimps, but still used
gang bang tactics. I know a few of them. They kind of operate differently. … Frowned on the p(imp) world
because they use gang member tactics when you’re pimping. Use a pistol, make a girl drop off a sack”
(B3). Another respondent similarly observed how gang involvement disrupts developed rules governing
the UCSE:
You’re not really supposed to be a gang member in [pimping]. It’s supposed to be set
aside because you are out there for one thing. Now, it doesn’t really matter. It’s supposed
to be Blood or Crip, for instance I was a Blood, and there is a girl out there and it happens
to be a Crips girl, she decides to come to me. … When you out there [pimping], there’s not
supposed to be any gang-related activity. (E13)
A few offenders also reported that gang rivalries were sometimes set aside while pimping. A woman who
worked as a bottom observed rival gang members working collaboratively as pimps: “We were all
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