Though underground and illegal, Atlanta’s sex trade operates like many other industries — highly structured, with an entrepreneurial bent.
Pimps — some of whom make as much as $33,000 a week — act independently but follow time-honored traditions. They frequently network with one another and use social media to exchange ideas and even girls.
Such were the findings of a government report released this week that determined sex is a highly profitable enterprise in Atlanta, one that brings in nearly $300 million annually — well above the seven other U.S. cities included in the study. Only Miami, where the sex trade generates an estimated $235 million per year, came close. Seattle, at $112 million, was a distant third, according to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan, Washington D.C. think tank that conducts economic and social policy research.
The study, commissioned by the Justice Department, is not comprehensive. Larger municipalities such as New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago were not included in the research, and national criminology studies sometimes produce misleading results, said University of New Hampshire sociology professor David Finkelhor, of the Crimes against Children Research Center.
“Places that are doing the best jobs look like they have the biggest problems because they are, for instance, making the most arrests,” he said.
But this study, crafted to help better understand how the modern sex trade works, is unique in that researchers conducted more than 250 interviews with law enforcement officers, pimps, sex traffickers, prostitutes and child pornographers in order to determine everything from pricing to motivation.
Despite the numbers, which were compiled from 2003-07, metro Atlanta is making progress, said the Urban Institute’s Meredith Dank, lead author on the report.
“Atlanta, in the last couple of years, has really stepped up their game,” Dank said. “The GBI has a whole unit now devoted to child sex crimes. Law enforcement is paying a lot more attention to the issue.”
Finkelhor agreed, saying Atlanta “has come a long, long way and is much more child-sensitive than it used to be.”
“There’s been a sizable effort to draw attention the the problem, particularly involving underage sex workers,” he said.
It wasn’t always so. Until 2000, pimping was treated as a misdemeanor in Georgia that often led to no jail time. Pimps were typically males in their 30s who had made a career transition from drugs because the illicit sex trade was viewed as less of a risk, according to the study.
“Pimps talked about a culture in Atlanta,”one largely independent of gangs, unlike other cities, Dank said. “A number of pimps got involved through their families — their dad was a pimp, or their mother was a hooker.”
That culture took a hit in 2001, when federal prosecutors busted a violent child prostitution ring, charging members with more than 200 counts of federal crimes, including racketeering, conspiracy and kidnapping. Among those arrested: Andrew “Batman” Moore and Charles “Sir Charles” Pipkins, considered by many to be mentors in the Atlanta branch of the world’s oldest profession.
The two received lengthy prison sentences and the General Assembly toughened sanctions on 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 network,” the Urban Institute study noted.
The report continued, quoting a law enforcement source, “They got scared. They’re not throwing out that word pimp. It’s ‘I’m an entrepreneur, a businessman.’ “
But the game continues. And it’s not contained to Atlanta’s inner cities.
The study found that the underground commercial sex economy in Atlanta area is mainly contained within three venues: street and online prostitution, Latino brothels, and massage parlors typically operated by Asian immigrants.
“I’m shocked,” said executive director of Georgia Women for a Change Stephanie Davis, reacting to the findings about Atlanta. “Some days I think things are getting better, then other days I fear they’re getting worse.”
Dank said the demand can be traced to the city’s status as a regional hub popular with conventioneers and tourists.
GBI director Vernon Keenan said he found little to disagree with in the report’s findings, but cited progress since 2007.
“We’ve heard from the FBI sources that child sex traffickers have moved from Atlanta” because of the aggressive pursuit and prosecution of those who exploit children, Keenan said.
In the meantime, “We continue to prioritize our resources into the child sex trafficking industry,” he said.
Still, many of the area’s sex workers remain underage.
“When we interview a sex worker who’s not a minor, they’ll often say they started out as a child,” the GBI director said.
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