The Controversy Over Pornography and Sex Crimes: The Criminological Evidence and Beyond
| Author | Andros Kapardis,Augustine Brannigan |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486588601900406 |
| Published date | 01 December 1986 |
| Date | 01 December 1986 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
AUST &NZ
JOURNAL
OF CRIMINOLOGY (December 1986) 19(259-284)
THE
CONTROVERSY OVER PORNOGRAPHY AND SEX
CRIMES: THE CRIMINOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
AND BEYOND
Augustine Brannigan" and Andros Kapardis**
259
Renewed governmental inquiries into the regulation
of
sexually explicit materials have revived
interest in the relationship (if any) between pornography and sexual offences. In this article we
review the criminological studies which have explored this relationship. Availability
of
sexually
explicit materials appears to be unrelated to the frequency distributions
of
reported rape,
though evidence points to a decline in child molestation. In the second part
of
the article we
situate the putative link between pornography and sexual deviance within some
of
the
contemporary theories
of
rape causation and some
of
the
known
social correlates
of
rape
victims and offenders. Community, victim, offender and legislative characteristics would
appear to be much more convincing explanations
of
variations in the rates
of
reported rape than
the circulation
of
pornography and sexist repression attributed to it by certain feminist and
Christian writers.
Introduction
Only 16 years after the US Commission of Inquiry into Obscenity and
Pornography the relationship between pornography and crime is again a
matter
of
public concern.
Data
furnished by Kutchinsky (1971) and Ben-Veniste (1971) on
Danish sex crimes, as well a US
data
reported by Kupperstein and Wilson (1971),
suggested
that
the availability of pornography did not foster serious anti-social
behaviour as apocalytpic critics warned. However, this conclusion was criticized in
aminority report of the Commission written by social scientist, Victor Cline of
Brigham Young University, on behalf of two Commissioners and veteran
anti-pornography campaigners, Jesuit Morton Hill and Methodist minister,
Reverend Winfrey Link.
Other
criticisms were levelled at the Danish studies which
figured so importantly in the conclusion that social science could find no criminal
harm
from obscenity (Baehy, 1976;
Bart
and Jozsa, 1980; Byrne
and
Kelley, 1984;
Court, 1977, 1984; Diamond, 1980) and some of these have
been
critically
re-examined in turn (Cochrane, 1978; Kutchinsky, 1983; Williams, 1979). Findings
reported
in the latest studies have been contradictory (Baron
and
Straus, 1984;
Giglio, 1985; Kuchinsky, 1985; McKay
and
Dolff, 1985).
On the political level feminists have marched publicly to protest pornography and
violence against women, most notably in the "take-back-the-night" marches
(Wheeler, 1985: 380), and fire bombings of video sex shops in
Canada
and England
have
been
attributed to fringe elements in the women's movement. Together with
elements of the Moral Majority in
North
America and the Festival of Light in
Britain, many feminists have lobbied governments for greater censorship of
pornography. Thatcher's government in Britain instituted the Video Recordings
Bill in 1984,
one
of the most punitive censorship laws in the free world (Barker,
1984). Notably, it was legitimated in
part
by a study conducted by
the
Parliamentary
Media
Group
which alleged
that
children (as opposed to women) were being
victimized by exposure to pornoviolent videos. However, contrary to its
name,
the
•
PhD,
Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada.
•• PhD, Lecturer in Legal Studies, La Trobe University, Victoria.
260
ABRANNIGAN &AKAPARDIS (1986) 19 ANZJ Crim
group had no formal link to Parliament and its findings appear to have been
fabricated (Brown, 1984). In Canada, the Fraser Committee reported in 1985 to the
Minister of Justice with recommendations to revise the censorship laws to stiffen the
penalty for violent pornography; the report expressly endorsed a feminist
perspective on pornography though Canadian feminists were far from being
universally enthusiastic with this stance (see Burstyn, 1985; McCormack, 1985a, b),
though to be fair, their ambivalence is hardly a national problem (see Simpson,
1983:67ff for a description of the dilemmas of English feminist views on the
Williams Committee). In the US, feminists Andrea Dworkin and Catherine
MacKinnon drafted a by-law for Minneapolis which extended tremendously the
control of and liability
for.
the "effects" of pornography; this was struck down by
state appeal court, and leave to appeal to the US Supreme Court was denied in
1986. While it may have been drafted by feminists, the law was adopted locally and
copied elsewhere with the enthusiastic support of fundamentalists (Duggan et al,
1985). Meanwhile, in 1984, US President Reagan directed the Attorney General to
investigate the
"effects
of pornography, and in Australia in
1984-85
a Select
Committee travelled widely to receive public evidence on proposals to change the
video classification Act for the Australian Capital Territory. These developments
have re-opened the question of pornography and its possible criminal
consequences.
What
Does the Evidence Show?
First, it should be stressed that the only evidence we are concerned with here are
the criminological studies of the distribution of sex offences over periods in which
pornography has become so widespread. We are not focusing on the commission of
crimes (ie rape or murder) within the making of pornography though there is
evidence that this may be occurring (see Marciano, 1980), nor are we interested
here in the "seedier" elements associated with pornography corporations (see
Miller, 1985). The psychological laboratory studies which have become something
of a growth industry of late are also beyond the scope of this article (see Malamuth
and Donnerstein, 1984; Yaffe and Nelson, 1982; Eysenck and Nias, 1978;
Brannigan and Goldenberg, 1986).
The current controversy begins with complaints made regarding Berl
Kutchinsky's reports of the trends in sex crimes during and following the
liberalization of the Danish censorship laws. Kutchinsky concentrated on the data
for Copenhagen which showed for the aggregate total of sex offences against
females a "steady and substantial" decrease from 1965to 1970.When the data were
disaggregated, they showed "a steady decrease in all types of sex offences except
rape" (1973:165). Rape rates were erratic showing no overall increase or decrease.
The largest decreases were found in cases of criminal peeping, verbal indecency,
and the physical interference with or molestation of girls. Among the sex crimes
studied, Kutchinsky was careful to note that "there were no legislative changes
nor
any changes in the official registration procedures which could have excluded any
act, earlier included, from being registered" (1973:167). Hence, the decline was not
an artifact of category abolition nor altered administrative policies. However, he
was keenly aware that the liberal attitudes to sexuality might lead victims of minor
offences to not report them. To control for this, Kutchinsky measured changes in
public attitudes to sexual offences as well as self-reported victimization. And on this
basis he concluded that most of the decline in exhibitionism was attributable to
decreased reporting, as was some of the decline in indecent touching of women, but
that the decline in both peeping (which frequently involved trespass, and which
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