Harlem Pimps’ Reflections on Quitting: External and Internal Reasons

Abstract

ABSTRACTPimps quit their illicit work in sex markets for many reasons, such as job dissatisfaction, having a child, going to prison, and feeling guilty. In this study, we used a mixed methods approach to explore pimps’ interdiscursive reasons for quitting. Our analytic sample focuses on 43 self-identified former pimps, who were interviewed in situ in housing projects in Harlem, New York. Based on existing desistance research, we hypothesize that pimps would express external or internal themes of quitting. External reasons involve changes due to the environment, (e.g., job dangerousness), events (e.g., going to prison) or opportunities (e.g., getting a legitimate job). Internal reasons center on change from within, such as in their morality. First, we qualitatively identify these themes and how they are connected within the accounts. Many accounts are interdiscursive, i.e., with multiple themes or some themes occurring across categories, such as having children and moral reasons. Second, we use non-metric, Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) to triangulate and systematically assess our qualitative findings. We find adequate support for this External to Internal typology, with 67.5% of the cases being classified as dominantly within one theme. Using non-metric MDS is a novel method to triangulate this type of qualitative data.