413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Street and Internet-based pimps also set daily quotas. These quotas typically vary by the race of the
woman, with white women required to meet higher quotas than women of other races. Law enforcement
stated that pimps generally set daily quotas of about $100 per day, and as high as $700 to $1,500 on the
weekend. One law enforcement official discussed a case involving a pimp that had a $1,000 daily quota
and how this led to other types of crime:
Respondent 1: $1,000 a day [quota]—doesn’t matter how you got it—as long as you got
it. So these girls were stealing, and that’s where prostitution encompasses all aspects of
crime because a girl’s got to make a grand, it doesn’t matter how she does it. So they take
watches, so two or three girls, two of ‘em are robbing him and the other ones are going
through the [truck] and taking all the stuff out of there—they get an ATM card. You’ve got
the robberies, you’ve got the burglaries, you’ve got the personal thefts, all these part one
offenses surrounding this one issue. Do white [women] have to make more [to another
law enforcement official in the room]
Respondent 2: Yeah.
Interviewer: White girls have to make more. And the weekend quota is higher
Respondent 1: I think that it was just every day. You’ll see some of them say $700 but
on the weekends I have to make $1,000 or $1,500 or something really crazy. But I think
for the majority $1,000 a day, and you didn’t come home until you had it. What we
witnessed … if they didn’t come back with it they were going to get beat. And they’ve seen
the others get beat or they been beat themselves so they’re going to do whatever they can
to make sure that they come home with $1,000. (Dallas Law Enforcement Officials)
Dallas officials had knowledge of about three to four pimps exploiting larger groups of victims (10 to 20),
while the rest (majority) exploited between one and three victims. The money made from trafficking is
largely cash-based and pimps have been known to use Green Dot cards so that cash isn’t traceable
through bank accounts. Assets of street-based/Internet pimps are reportedly typically difficult to seize by
law enforcement since pimps purposefully hide their assets to avoid seizure. For example, if pimps own
houses, they are typically under someone else’s name. And although they tend to drive expensive cars, the
cars are usually leased. In addition, law enforcement reported that for tax purposes, some of the pimps
they encounter have record labels or modeling businesses. In addition to tax purposes/money laundering,
these businesses also serve a recruitment purpose, as described below:
It’s part of their dream that their selling, it’s part of their recruitment process. We’re
going to make all of this money, we’re going to make this record label, and we’re going to
be bigger than West Coast Records or whatever. (Dallas Law Enforcement Official)
It was reported that the Internet has enabled street-level pimps to recruit women and girls by presenting
themselves as legitimate business owners, if those businesses appear on the Internet. However, the
recruitment process would vary depending on the characteristics of the woman or girl:
For some, they need the grooming process, I think that our society changes … but if you
get a runaway from the West End, you give her a place to stay, you give her some food,
you [get her to turn in] two days. … One of the other things is the Myspace, and
MocoSpace. Believe it or not, people still use them, and the ones that are using them are
usually younger, and pimps are on there like crazy. We just had one two weeks ago, that
we got a call from [police department] and when we interviewed the girl, she took the
laptop and opened it up, showed us, and there she was taking self-pictures of her in her
thong and a little top on and I’m like, “Ok, and who put these on” She says, “Oh I did.”
She goes, “Yeah, this is a hook-up site.” That’s what she was using as a hook-up site. So
that’s another way that they’re getting them. They’ll befriend them, it’s glorified now to be
a pimp, you look at the TV shows, “Pimp my Ride.” Pimp this, pimp, it’s in songs,
everything is pimp, pimp, pimp, and so when these guys do that, you’ve got these screwed
up girls who don’t know any better and they’ll think that it’s cool and they’ll hang out with
them, and they’ll start smoking with them and after that they’ll say, “Oh you want to try
it” “Yeah, I’ll try it.” (Dallas Law Enforcement Official)
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