413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Street and Internet
Prices charged in the Dallas market for street-based prostitution and sex trafficking vary by neighborhood
as well as the incidence of trafficking versus prostitution. One law enforcement official described how
prices vary based on a number of factors:
I think that some of that would also have to go on the actual lady that is working. Some of
them out there, if you’re doing it solely to support a drug habit, you’ll probably get your
$5 or $10 girls that will sell themselves for that price. If you’ve got a pimp involved with
that then you’re going to start seeing the $60 for maybe the oral and then the prices will
go up from there for the actual sexual intercourse. So you’ve got a big variance and as you
said, certain neighborhoods where the clientele, they’re paying $5, that’s usually going to
be around where there’s a lot of drugs or it’s a poorer neighborhood. You’re not really
going to get that up on the main, what we consider to be the drag for prostitution. That’s
probably where you’re going to have the girls that are being placed out there by pimps.
(Dallas Law Enforcement Official)
As described above, at the low-end of the market are drug-addicted, non-pimp-controlled adult women
and men. These individuals reportedly charge $5 to $10 for oral sex and are mostly addicted to crack
cocaine, methamphetamine, and cocaine. According to officials, drug-addicted men and women are
typically not controlled by a pimp for some of the following reasons:
Their drug dealer is their pimp. And they’re making the money for themselves for the
drugs. And the pimp doesn’t want their girls on drugs because then you can’t control
them. The drugs control them and then she’ll rip him off. (Dallas Law Enforcement
Official)
Law enforcement surmised that men are less pimp-controlled due to the absence of the emotional
connection commonly found between male pimps and female sex workers:
I would say that the males don’t have pimps as much. They are either doing it to survive
or they are doing it for a drug habit as well. Now I think that the reason why they don’t
have pimps is because you look at them and it is pimping, there is a not an emotional
connection made between male to male. (Dallas Law Enforcement Official)
At the high-end of the street-based market are adults and minors who operate on the street and Internet
and typically charge around $60 to $120 per hour for sexual intercourse. These adults and minors are
typically trafficked and not drug-addicted. When asked if the minors on the street are controlled by a
pimp, one law enforcement official explained:
Well just look at them; really a juvenile can’t do it. You’ll hear a lot of them say that
they’re quote renegades but I’ve never seen a renegade. I mean they’ll all say it. But if you
actually just look at the dynamics of it, they can’t do it without help. They can’t book hotel
rooms, they can’t get cards, they can’t get the credit cards to put the Internet ads out.
They have to have an adult to do all of that. For certain, there is almost always an adult
behind it somewhere who is controlling it. (Dallas Law Enforcement Official)
Dallas law enforcement officials have conducted a number of operations to determine whether prices are
higher for minors compared to adults and have found that the prices are consistent and that most clients
are not preferential offenders (i.e., pedophiles): 46
I don’t know that the average trick on the street is looking, or john or customer, is looking
for a kid. When they come around the corner, they don’t care whether it is the 15-year-old
kid or the 25-year-old woman or the 35-year-old woman. They just want to victimize
whatever is coming around the corner. And we can support that through the operation
46 It should be noted that the TVPA was amended in 2008 to strike “knowingly” from the definition so that traffickers could be held
accountable for child sex trafficking even if they claimed they didn’t know the victim was a minor. Prior to this change, claiming that
the defendant did not know the victim was under 18 was used as a defense strategy in child sex trafficking cases.
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