Coercion, Control, and Cooperation in a Prostitution Ring

• Date: 01 May 2014
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716214521995
• Author: Carlo Morselli,Isa Savoie-Gargiso
• Published date: 01 May 2014

ANNALS, AAPSS, 653, May 2014 247

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214521995

Coercion,

Control, and

Cooperation in

a Prostitution

Ring

By

CARLO MORSELLI

and

ISA SAVOIE-GARGISO

521995ANN The Annals of the American AcademyCoercion, Control, and Cooperation in a Prostitution Ring

research-article2014

Coercion and control are key components of the domi-

nant narrative on sex trafficking, but the power and

exchange relations between some of the key players in

trafficking have not been carefully examined. This

study is based on electronic surveillance data from a

two-year police investigation of a prostitution network

in Montreal. All of the prostitutes in the network had

initially been recruited when they were minors.

Whereas most of the writing on sex trafficking portrays

pimps as being involved in highly exploitative and coer-

cive relationships with prostitutes, we found that con-

trol was not always the sole purview of the pimps, that

prostitutes often held key positions and privileged roles

within the network, and that pimps’ and prostitutes’

relationships involved complex exchanges of network

resources.

Keywords: pimp; prostitution; social network analy-

sis; conversation analysis

Human trafficking, which involves labor

exploitation through coercion and decep-

tion or the involvement of minors, has been

studied mostly within the context of commer-

cial sex. Writings on sex trafficking often

focus on the harm that is experienced by

Carlo Morselli is a professor at the École de criminolo-

gie, Université de Montréal and deputy director of the

Centre international de criminologie comparée. His

research focuses primarily on the areas of organized

crime, criminal networks, and crime markets. He is the

author or editor of three recent books: Contacts,

Opportunities, and Criminal Enterprise (UTP Press

2005); Inside Criminal Networks (Springer 2009); and

Crime and Networks (Routledge 2014) and is the editor

in chief of Global Crime.

Isa Savoie-Gargiso has research expertise primarily in

the areas of prostitution markets and social networks

analysis. She is a research analyst with the Quebec City

Police.

NOTE: We thank Pierre Tremblay, Martin Bouchard,

and Chloé Leclerc for their suggestions in the prepara-

tion of this art icle.

248 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

prostitutes—harms that include physical violence, sexual trauma, and dissociative

disorders (Kramer 2003; Ross, Farley, and Schwartz 2003). Some writers define

prostitution as inherently involving violence, whether or not coercion is actually

involved. From such a perspective, the notion of consent is dismissed, as a lack

of options translates into an invisible form of coercion: “To assume that there is

consent in the case of prostitution is to disappear its harm. . . . The line between

coercion and consent is deliberately blurred in prostitution” (Farley 2003, 248–

49). Instead, prostitution and sex trafficking are thought to be ways for men to

exercise power over women (Barry 1995; Norton-Hawk 2004). Advocates of this

particular paradigm argue that most or all prostitution involves sex trafficking

(Weitzer 2007). This applies not only to minors, who are deemed trafficking vic-

tims under American and Canadian law, but also to adult sex workers who are

claimed as trafficking victims because of the exploitation that is presumed to be

involved in their work.

Recognizing that prostitution and sex trafficking are often marked by coercion

and exploitation, this article presents empirical data to respond to key criticisms

that have been made against the sex industry, which is heavily targeted by the

antitrafficking movement—claims based on anecdotes or questionable data and

that often fail to reveal sources and methods (see Weitzer 2007; Zhang 2009). Sex

workers’ rights organizations have also emerged to contest the claim that victimi-

zation of prostitutes is rampant and to argue that offering sexual services is a job

like any other (Aral et al. 2003). For these organizations, the root of the problem

is not the service offered but the working conditions related to prostitution.

There are numerous problems that prostitutes can encounter, such as abuse by

clients or by police and the precarious conditions under which sex work occurs,

but these risks are not considered inherent in prostitution (Bell 1987; Lacasse

2003). Overall, this work-context approach focuses more on the agency of the

prostitutes in managing these risks and attempting to improve their lifestyles,

which distinguishes this paradigm from one that moralizes or erases the agency

of those engaged in prostitution.

Sex trafficking studies are consistent with many of the assumptions and

debates that underlie research on men and women in pimp/prostitution relation-

ships. Research in this area falls between two extremes: studies portraying pimps

as exploiters and controllers and the fewer studies depicting pimps and other

facilitators as service providers or protectors. There is basic consensus, however,

on the definition of a pimp: an individual who lives off the earnings of and exer-

cises at least some control over a prostitute. It is on the element of control that

debate often centers.

The current antitrafficking discourse highlights the exploitation of sex workers

by traffickers as well as pimps (generally, men) who exercise control over these

women’s lives. Trafficking here takes the form of deceptive recruitment, manipu-

lation, pressure, and physical violence (Dalla, Xia, and Kennedy 2003; Hodgson

1997; Williamson and Cluse-Tolar 2002). Several studies have documented

pimps’ use of violence against prostitutes. For example, Raphael and Shapiro

(2004) found that half of the prostitutes in their Chicago study had been sub-

jected to violence from their pimps and 35 percent had been raped by them.