Study: Chicago Prostitutes Forced to Give Freebies to Chicago Police

The Chicago Tribune reports:

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.

No word yet from Barack Obama on this one.Can you name the party that controlled Chicago since 1931?