This is the story of a pimp, Shame, the women he uses and abuses and how he recruited and maintained them on the street. First the street is revealed through Shame's mother, Latisa, as she works for different pimps, including a pimp/gambler who uses her to entice customers with live sex shows until they crossed organized crime.
Shame has many run-ins with the law as a juvenile, but escapes detention while attending his mother's funeral. He falls in love, but is rejected when his lover finds out how old he is. As an adult, he encounters a couple of seasoned prostitutes. He convinces them to make him the kind of pimp they want. He quickly develops into a pimp like the rest of the vultures on the street. In the course of his initiation, a gangster pimp forcibly takes one of his women. Her wife-in-law attempts to rescue her.
Shame moves on, recruiting young victims and learning from other pimps the ins and outs of the street. He meets a young woman and against the unwritten rules of the street falls in love. Fighting against his feelings he cons her into believing he's in trouble to get her into prostitution. When she finds out he is a pimp, she turns on him. She is kidnapped and drugged into submission. She tries to escape, but is found dead of a drug overdose.
A policewoman who grew up with the drug victim conducts her own investigation. She goes undercover as a prostitute and another of Shame's women dies in a suspicious manner. She joins forces with a D.C. vice detective and they obtain enough evidence to get Shame arrested. The very dramatic trial does not turn out the way they expected and the victims of Shame decide to get their own justice.