A two-year study of the economics of prostitution in Chicago found the women were forced to service police officers, worked more during holidays like July 4th and varied pricing based on their customer’s race, according to a preliminary paper presented by the researchers. More

A two-year study of the economics of prostitution in Chicago found the women were forced to service police officers, worked more during holidays like July 4th and varied pricing based on their customer’s race, according to a preliminary paper presented by the researchers.

University of Chicago professor and "Freakonomics" author Steven D. Levitt and sociology professor Sudhir Venkatesh of Columbia University organized a two-year study of street-level prostitution in the Roseland and Pullman neighborhoods. The study, which ended in May, also included Washington Park for about 8 months after police began a crackdown and the regular prostitutes moved their activity 6 miles north.

Although it has yet to be formally published, the study has been read by Chicago aid workers, some of whom dispute its findings on the city’s sex trade.

The researchers hired trackers, typically former prostitutes themselves, to follow a sample of about 160 female sex workers and record details of each sex act they performed. Working prostitutes were paid $150 a week to participate in the two-year study.

Street prostitutes reported that about 3 percent of the sex acts they performed were "freebies" given to Chicago police officers to avoid arrest, according to a draft report of the study, which was presented to a packed session last weekend at an annual national economics conference in New Orleans.

According to the paper, full-time prostitutes made on average less than $20,000 a year. If they had a pimp, the women made a little more, even after giving up a 25 percent cut of their earnings. The women reported being beaten about once a month on average.

Fridays were the sex trade’s busiest days; Mondays the slowest.

Differences in price

White and Hispanic men were charged more, the study found, while blacks and repeat customers paid less. Seasonal spikes in demand drove up prices — the study found prices increased 30 percent in Washington Park over the July 4 week — and brought more women into the market.

Markets in Roseland and Pullman operated differently, the study found. In Pullman, prostitutes worked with one of four pimps, while in Roseland prostitutes worked the streets on their own, according to the study.

Levitt, whose best-selling book "Freakonomics" made him a nationally known economist, declined through a university spokesman to comment and did not want the results published because the paper was still preliminary and incomplete. Venkatesh replied to a Tribune e-mail and also asked that the results not be published.

But details of the research and the preliminary findings have been circulated to aid groups in the city and presented elsewhere, and mentioned on Levitt’s Freakonomics blog. The full draft of the paper is on the University of Chicago’s Web site, marked "extremely preliminary and incomplete."

Chicago groups working to help women escape the sex trade said they felt the draft paper overall failed to adequately address prostitutes’ suffering, seemed inaccurate in spots, and could be misread.

Samir Goswami, associate director of policy at the Chicago Coaltion for the Homeless, said that although the data collected by the researchers was impressive, the study seemed to hold little potential in addressing the problem. He noted that street prostitution is a small fraction of the sex trade. "It’s a classic example of an economist trying to tackle a very complicated problem just by looking at numbers," said Goswami, who has read the paper. "It’s flawed because the numbers do not explain the social situation these women are in. It’s not just a business transaction."

Advocates also said prostitutes are beaten more frequently than reported in the study, and some questioned the findings on pimps, maintaining that the men take a larger cut than 25 percent and that there are in fact pimps in Roseland.

"It just makes me really wonder if they have a full understanding of how pimps work," said Olivia Howard, a former prostitute who is now assistant director of recovery support services for the Haymarket Center, a substance-abuse treatment organization. "… The girls may not call them pimps. It might be their boyfriend, manager or business partner. They’re still being exploited."

"I think it’s a real dangerous thing to say there’s no pimps in Roseland," said Rachel Durchslag of the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, who read the draft study. "It paints a really warped picture."

Police spokeswoman Monique Bond did not respond to requests for comment on the study’s finding that some police officers demand sex from prostitutes.

New training for responders

The city is working on new training for first responders who deal with prostitutes, starting with paramedics, said an official in the Mayor’s Office on Domestic Violence. Chicago aid groups said that in this regard, the study’s results are unsurprising and perhaps even understated.

"When they drive up on you, it’s such a fear factor — you don’t have a choice," said Brenda Myers-Powell, a former prostitute who now works with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and mentors women leaving the sex trade. "Chicago’s finest takes its privileges wherever it can. I’m not talking secondhand; I’m talking about what I’ve experienced."

The study also had disturbing findings about health issues and gave insights into the effectiveness of law enforcement.

The study found that condoms were used in just 25 percent or fewer acts — unprotected sex seemed to be the starting point for negotiations — and there was a small price increase for unprotected sex.

Levitt and Venkatesh found that prostitution arrests were concentrated in certain parts of the city — half were made in just eight of the city’s 77 community areas. Neighborhoods near train stations or a major road saw more arrests, as did areas with more families on public assistance.

But arrest records paint an incomplete picture, the draft paper says, not only because police activity ebbs and flows, but because prostitutes in their study were only officially arrested once for every 450 sex acts. Johns were arrested even less frequently. The extra paperwork and concern in neighborhoods about appearing to have an active sex market led to fewer reported arrests, conversations with police suggested, according to the paper.

Only one in 10 arrests — there are about 3,500 arrests in Chicago each year — leads to a prison sentence, leading the authors to conclude that "the criminal justice system has a relatively minor impact on prostitution activities."

Goswami and Durchslag said they were trying to arrange a meeting with Levitt. A University of Chicago spokesman said a final version of the paper is expected to be released in April.

Source: Chicago Tribune – United States