 I: EFFECTS ON SEX CRIMES AND VIOLENCE
6.1 We start our review of the harms possibly caused by pornography and
violent material with the area where the harms alleged are of the most
definitely identifiable kind, and where it is suggested that the effects of
the material are kinds of behaviour which tend to be noticed particularly
because they conflict with the law.
6.2 The arguments here are that certain kinds of behaviour. particularly in
the form of criminal offences of violence and of a sexual nature, are either
directly provoked by exposure to particular stimuli-such as the reading of a
sex magazine producing a state of arousal which is manifested in rape or
sexual assault, or the viewing of a film producing imitative violence are at
least more likely to occur in an atmosphere created by pornography and
violent material. The arguments suggest. therefore, that the proliferation
of porno- graphy results in increasing sexual offences and that violence in
the media leads to an increase in offences of violence.
6.3 Submissions made to us on this subject, where they considered it neces-
sary to support simple assertions by some kind of evidence, rested on three
different classes of information. One kind may be called (without
disrespect) "anecdotal", and is drawn from particular instances in which an
association between, crime and pornographic material has been observed, and
a causal con- nection, it is claimed, can plausibly be supposed. We consider
in this context also considerations put to us by psychiatrists on the basis
of clinical experience. A second kind of evidence is drawn from research,
involving experiments or guided observations, into human responses to
particular kinds of material. Such research, obviously enough, does not
itself involve the subjects committing crimes (or at least none that does
has been drawn to our attention). What it rather does is to enquire whether
reactions in the experimental set-up are of a kind-for instance, of an
aggressive kind-which would lead one to expect crime or other anti-social
behaviour as a response to that material in ordinary life. The third kind of
evidence-the kind that has commanded a great deal of attention and aroused a
great deal of controversy in this subject-is that drawn from statistical
analysis of trends in known crime relative to the varying availability of
pornography.
6.4 The relations between the last two kinds of evidence we take to be the
following. A positive result in the second, experimental, kind of enquiry
might be expected to show up in the statistical enquiry, if that is
reliable, since if greater availability of pornography in real life is not
connected with more crime, then the experimental results cannot have the
significance for real life that is ascribed to them. On the other hand, a
positive result from the statistical enquiry would be compatible with
negative results from the experimental enquiry, since it might be that crime
and pornography were linked in real life, but not by any mechanism which was
revealed under those experimental conditions.
6.5 We will consider these kinds of evidence in turn.
Anecdotal and clinical evidence
6.6 A number of cases was drawn to our attention, and our own enquiries
brought others to light, in which particular publications or films or a
general interest *m pornography, had been connected with the commission of
offences We saw a number of press reports in which the defence had alleged
on behalf of a man charged with sexual offences that the commission of the
crime could be ascribed to the influence of pornography. To lay weight
simply what is said by the defence would be rather naive: offenders or their
counsel are not slow to proffer an excuse which mitigates the seriousness of
the offence or reduces the individual's responsibility for having committed
it, and it was noticeable that there were fewer cases in which the trial
judge offered his own comment on the influence of pornography. Two notable
cases mentioned to Us were those of the Moors Murderers and the Cambridge
Rapist, in both of which it has been alleged (not by the trial judge in
either case) that the corrupt- ing effect of pornography played a role.
6.7 In the case of the Cambridge Rapist, the defence tried to emphasise the
influence of pornographic films and magazines and the local Chief Constable
stated at the end of the trial that the case had "proved the real danger of
pornography" . We do not believe that a study of the case permits such a
simple conclusion. The offender was a man with a long history of mental dis-
turbance and criminal activity, with psychopathic tendencies evident from an
early age. He had shown an interest in pornography but there was nothing to
suggest that the particular methods which he had chosen to use in committing
his offences owed anything to the pornography he had seen or that he would
not have committed the offences had it not been for the influence of pornog-
raphy. Somewhat similar considerations applied in the case of the Moors
Murderers, though in that case less emphasis was placed on the influence of
the publications in the possession of the offenders, both during the trial
and in subsequent comment. Both these cases seem to be more consistent with
the pre- existing traits being reflected both in a choice of reading matter
and in the committed against others. It would be extremely unsafe, in our
view. to con- crude, even tentatively. that exposure to pornography was a
cause of the offences committed in those particular cases.
6.8 The same point applied to the other cases which came to our attention
(and indeed, the indications from research, as Yaff6 has pointed out, are
that sex offenders have had less recent exposure to sexual material than
other groups). Although there was on occasion some evidence of a link
between an offence committed and a previous exposure-in the form of some
common feature, for example-even this is no evidence that the link is a
causal one: as one of our witnesses put it to us. to give a. person who is
predisposed to commit crime an idea of a particular way in which to do it is
really very different from instilling the disposition in the first place. We
discussed these matters with a number of psychiatrists and psychologists,
including some with special experience of the treatment of offenders, but we
were struck by the fact that none of them was able to tell us of a case of
which they had experience in which there was evidence of a causal link
between pornography and a ,violent sexual crime. None of our psychiatric or
psychological witnesses in fact saw very great harm in straightforward
sexual pornography, and some, indeed felt that cases more frequently
occurred in which the effects of pornog- raphy were beneficial rather than
harmful. Dr P L G Gallwey of the Portman Clinic was one of these, stressing
the sense of security that was sometimes generated, particularly through a
lessening of the sense of exclusion and by assuaging the violent feelings
associated with exclusion. Professor H J Eysenck of the Institute of
Psychiatry, despite his serious reservations. which we will consider later,
about violent matter, agreed that, depending on how it was portrayed, sexual
material could reduce violent activity. Dr A Hyatt Williams of the Tavistock
Clinic told us that his experience was that the outlet provided by
pornography could prevent the commission of offences and that an offence
could result if a person dependent on that kind of satisfaction were
deprived of it. It was also widely agreed that if published pornography was
not avail- able, some people would simply produce it for themselves: Dr
Gallwey, for example, showed us a highly pornographic and very disturbing
story written by a young offender he had treated and cited to us another
instance of a man using what materials were available to him in prison-even
The Farmers' Weekly-to construct pornographic pictures.
6.9 This does not mean that no harm was seen in pornography. Dr Hyatt
Williams, for example, was less concerned about the possibility of initial
cor- ruption than about the way in which certain patients might have their
recovery impeded if they were again exposed to pornography and he made the
point that dependence on pornography, even when it had a cathartic effect on
those otherwise disposed to commit offences, masked the need for the person
con- cerned to seek treatment which might provide a cure. Dr Gallwey, too,
made the point that for some people on the edge of psychosis pornography
served to weaken their grip on reality. Our witnesses emphasised to us,
however, that it was only a very small minority of people who were likely to
be affected in this way and there was a general reluctance to suggest that
the balance of advantage lay in attempting to place more severe restrictions
on pornography in order to safeguard them.
6.10 Clinical opinion and our impression of the anecdotal evidence cohere:
the cases in which a link between pornography and crime has even been sug-
gested are remarkably few. Given the amount of explicit sexual material in
circulation and the allegations often made about its effects. it is striking
that One can study case after case of sex crimes and murder without finding
any hint at all that pornography was present in the background. What is also
striking is that if one tried to eliminate the stimuli in published material
which may have some relation to sexual deviation or the commission of
offences, the net must be cast impossibly wide. As an illustration of this
point, Dr Gallwey Mentioned to us a patient who had killed himself in the
course of his masochistic practices which had started when, as a disturbed
child of only 8 or 9 years, he had been excited by coming across a picture
of a woman bound to a stake. The protection of the young raises special
considerations Which we shall come to later, but even so it is clearly
impossible to suppress Pictures of Joan of Arc. A glance at the list of
books found in the home of Ian Brady, the Moors murderer, makes the same
point. There are people who will gain a perverted satisfaction from reading
accounts of Nazi atrocities or of other historical happenings, or even
passages in the Bible, but publications cannot be suppressed on that
account. All kinds of literature can have a destructive effect. The case of
Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, which was said to have made suicide
fashionable. is famous, but equally we heard of a romantic novel linked to
the drowning of a teenage girl and of an Agatha Christie story linked to a
real-life poisoning. There can be no question of suppressing such works. Art
galleries cannot be closed to those who find. excitement in paintings of
barbarous acts or semi-clad women; nor can such people be kept away from
beaches or be prevented from reading daily news. papers. For those who are
susceptible to them, the stimuli are all around us; but the main point we
wish to make from our study of the anecdotal and clinical evidence is that
there is very little indication that pornography figures very significantly
among these stimuli.
6.11 Our expert witnesses had more reservations about violent material,
though again we heard no direct evidence of cases in which it was considered
that crime had resulted from a particular stimulus. But both Professor Sir
Martin Roth and Professor Trevor Gibbens told us that it was pornography
with a violent content which concerned them most. Some cases were brought to
our attention by other witnesses in which such effects were alleged to have,
occurred, and perhaps the chief object of such allegations was the film A
Clock- work Orange which after its release early in 1972 was cited in a few
court cases as the cause of real-life violence perpetrated by young men. The
film. was undoubtedly a powerful one and it seems clear that aspects of the
were deliberately copied by some youths who engaged in violence. Whether
that violence occurred only because they had seen the film is of course more
difficult to say and Mrs Mary Whitehouse, in the evidence submitted to us by
the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, was perhaps not on the
strongest ground when she attacked the film principally on the basis of a
case in which a 16 year old youth had brutally murdered a tramp: the youth
con- cerned, though certainly fascinated by the story, had not in fact seen
the film. (Since the film was classified as unsuitable for persons under 18
years. if he had seen it, he would not have done so legally.) We came across
just three other cases in which A Clockwork Orange had been mentioned.
Another film mentioned for its disturbing and anti-social effects was The
Exorcist, and we read about two cases in which young men took their own
lives (in only one of these was the link with the film very strong), and
three other cases in which sexual offences or murder were associated with
the film. The case involving murder, which was brought to our notice by the
Nationwide Festival of Light, illustrates what we said earlier in this
chapter about such films being made an excuse. The young man concerned had
said that he had committed the offence while possessed by an evil spirit,
after seeing the film The Exorcist; but it seems, from the press reports.
that he admitted on the last day of his trial that he had simply made up
this story after seeing a copy of the book in the police car. In the two
other cases the film did not, even superficially, appear to be the dominant
influence in the offences.
6.12 With respect to violence, the same point arises as before. The net
would have to be cast very wide to prevent actual events from being
influenced undesirably by what people see. It was, for example, a televised
version of The Brothers Karamazov which was said to have influenced a young
man to attempt to kill his parents with a meat cleaver in 1976, and it was
the American television series Roots which was alleged to have prompted a
Jamaican in London to rape a white. woman, saying that he was going to treat
her as white men had treated black women. While we have been preparing this
report, the IRA have planted a bomb in a manner modelled on an incident in a
television crime series; a 12 year boy has been reported as shooting himself
in Detroit while playing Russian roulette after seeing The Deer Hunter; and
an 8 year old girl has jumped from a second-floor landing in Barcelona after
telling her playmates she was Superman.
Research studies
6.13 A great deal of research work-more in the United States than in this
country-has been undertaken into the effects of exposure to porno- graphic
or explicit sexual material or material having a violent content.
Unfortunately, no very clear impression emerges from the results of this
work and, as we shall see, even those who have surveyed it cannot always
agree about the conclusions which can be drawn from it. We had available to
us two reviews of the relevant literature, by Mr Maurice Yaffe on the
effects of obscene material' and by Mr Stephen Brody on Screen Violence and
Film Censorship 2. Besides the general evidence which was put to us on these
matters, we also had the advantage of discussing the lessons of work in this
field, particularly in relation to violence, with two other authors who had
made a study of it and published the results, Professor H J Eysenck 3 and Dr
Guy Cumberbatch 4.
6.14 Some serious reservations inevitably attach to research in this field.
There is the absolutely general point that correlation experiments in
artificial conditions are regarded by many competent critics as an
unilluminating and unreliable way of investigating complex behaviour, even
in many other species, let alone in human beings. But further, more
specific, criticisms apply in the case of the kinds of behaviour that are in
question here. Since criminal and anti-social behaviour cannot itself, for
both practical and ethical reasons, be experimentally produced or
controlled. the observations must be made on some surrogate or related
behaviour, often expressed on a representational object, in some fictional
or "pretend" context. This feature of the work can come close, in some
cases, to simply begging the question. 'The fundamental issue in this field
concerns the relations that hold between the reactions aroused in a subject
by a represented, artificial. or fantasy scene, and his behaviour in
reality. Fantasy and reality, and their relations, are the basic categories
of the question. We can only express surprise at the confidence that some
investigators have shown in supposing that they can investigate this problem
through experimental set-ups in which reality is necessarily replaced by
fantasy. Such criticisms apply. of course. to the whole investigation. not
to a particular kind of result; they are equally relevant to those whose
results, derived from this kind of experiment, are supposed to deny
correlations between pictorial stimuli and real-life violence, and those
whose results tend in the opposite direction.
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1 Appendix V to Pornography: The Longford Report, Coronet Books, 1972 as
updated by
Mr Yaffe for our benefit.
2 Home Office Research Study No 40, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1977.
3 Sex, Violence and the Media, by H J Eysenck and D K B Nias, Temple Smith,
1978.
4 Mass Media Violence and Society, by D Howitt and G Cumberbatch, Elek
Science, 1975.
6.15 Besides observations of behaviour under experimental conditions, which
particularly apply to questions of violence, the evidence considered in
relation to sexual material is. as Mr Yaffe points out, basically of three
kinds: retrospective personal history studies of exposure to the material,
self-reports before and after experimental exposure, and physiological and
biochemical measures of change in response to experimental exposure. The
reliability of studies which depend on retrospective surveys or
self-supporting is notoriously suspect and this is particularly true where
they touch on highly personal and value-laden subjects such as sexual
behaviour.
6.16 Survey studies have included several which have asked varying samples
of people such as young male offenders, sexual offenders and various other
groups in the population about their exposure to pornography and their
sexual behaviour and other factors. Many of these were undertaken for the
United States Commission on Obscenity and Pornography and their inter-
pretation. quite apart from the difficulty of deriving any lessons from
them. has given rise to some controversy. We do not propose to discuss these
studies in detail: a summary, and a citation of the original work, appears
in Mr Yaffe's survey. We noted that the American Commission. in the light of
all the studies undertaken for it, concluded that "empirical research has
found no evidence to date that exposure to explicit sexual materials plays a
significant role in the causation of delinquent or criminal behaviour among
youth or adults"; we noted also that this conclusion was criticised in a
number of quarters as having been based on a partial examination of the
evidence in which ambiguities and certain contra-indications were ignored.
Without our- selves entering into the controversy about the Commission's
methods. we make the comment that the effect of re-examining the original
studies in the light of a hostile critique of the Commission's conclusions,
such as that put forward principally by Professor Victor Cline, is simply to
make one adopt rather more caution in drawing inferences from the studies
undertaken. It is still possible to say, as Mr Yaffe points out in his
updated review, that there does not appear to be any strong evidence that
exposure to sexually explicit material triggers off anti-social sexual
behaviour. We would add only that this is con- sistent with what we learned
from the clinical experience of those experienced medical witnesses we
consulted.
6.17 Studies of the effects of violent material have concentrated on
laboratory. experiments, a method which has figured less in research into
the anti-social effects of sexual material, though laboratory techniques
have of course been used in studying sexual arousal generally. Studies using
adults have concen- trated on men but girls as well as boys have been
studied in experiments using children. A considerable amount of work has
been done in relation particularly to television violence, which was not of
direct relevance to our review but it was the view of our witnesses that
many of the results of this work could be applied equally to films. In the
case of sexual material, we encountered disagreement about the exact weight
of the evidence for different conclusions; with regard to violent material,
we met flatly opposing views.
6.18 In his review of the literature, Brody concluded that "it can be stated
quite simply that social research has not been able unambiguously to offer
any firm assurance that the mass media in general, and films and television
'm particular, either exercise a socially harmful effect. or that they do
not". He went on:
"The most reasonable interpretation of the considerable quantity of research
results so far available would suggest that some people-par- ticularly young
people-may be inclined both to actual aggressiveness (however this is
manifested, and not necessarily in criminal behaviour) and to a preference
for entertainment dealing with aggressive themes. for reasons which probably
originate with the development of personality and character; but that
watching violent action on the screen is unlikely in itself to impel
ordinary viewers to behave in ways they would otherwise not have done.
Research into the causes of crime has repeatedly indicated the enormous
variety of possible contributing factors, all of which overlap in complex
ways and are quite unpredictable for any one individual; in all these
studies, incidentally, the mass media have war- ranted scarcely a mention.
That potentially violent or anti-social persons may find their own
sentiments and dispositions confirmed and perhaps reinforced by television
and films is not a consideration to be ignored. but it is in the
amplification of existing tendencies that the main influence is likely to
lie, not in the moulding of social behaviour.'
Howitt and Cumberbatch had fewer doubts as a result of their comprehen- sive
survey of research which, they suggested, had "'shown effectively that the
mass media-as far as it is possible to tell using social scientific
methodologies -do not serve to amplify the level of violence in society".
Eysenck and Nias, on the other hand, though following a less thorough review
of earlier studies, also showed few doubts but in the opposite sense: "the
evidence is fairly unanimous that aggressive acts new to the subjeet's
repertoire of responses, as well as acts already well established, can be
evoked by the viewing of violent scenes portrayed on film, TV or in the
theatre".
6.19 Such contradictions between investigators present a problem. We do not
have the space to discuss in detail all the studies from which such
different conclusions can be derived but it may be helpful to examine just
one as an illustration of how conflicting views can arise, and of the
limitations which, as we have already suggested, are inherent in these ways
of investigating these questions. A common tool in studying imitative
violence is the Bobo doll, an inflatable toy with a weighted base which
resumes an upright position after being knocked over, and a number of
studies have observed the reactions of children towards such a doll after
they have seen an adult assaulting it. For example, in the earliest such
study by Bandura and others in 1961, a number of children between 3 and 5
years were split into three groups, one of which was left in the presence of
an adult model punching, kicking or striking with a mallet a Bobo doll,
accompanied by aggressive cries of "Sock him ... pow" etc. another was left
in the presence of an adult who spent the time quietly assembling toys and
the third group left to play by themselves, though in later experiments the
children saw similar behaviour which had been filmed. When later given a
chance to play with various toys. including a Bobo doll and a mallet, the
group who had seen the adult assaulting the doll displayed similar
aggressive tendencies to a much greater extent than the other groups.
Eysenck and Nias simply record this result and the fact that similar studies
have invari- ably found that children do tend to imitate an aggressive model
when given the chance, and presumably notch it up among the "fairly
unanimous" evidence to which they refer.
6.20 Both Brody and Howitt and Cumberbatch, on the hand, discuss the severe
criticisms which have been made of such studies as the basis for apply- ing
notions of imitated violence to the real world outside the laboratory. Bobo
dolls, it is pointed out, are designed to invite knocking about and to
extra- polate to social behaviour the way in which a child plays with them
is quite unwarranted. This objection relates to the point we have already
made. that in studying this issue, the investigation of violence towards a
fantasy or surrogate object such as a doll comes close to begging the
question. Various other argu- ments about the many differences between the
laboratory situation and real life have been put forward, which in Brody's
view seriously undermine any attempts to apply research results to the claim
that films promote aggressive or violent behaviour by imitation. Howitt and
Cumberbatch point out in addition that Bandura's studies involve exposing
children to fairly novel kinds of toys and that if the children have prior
experience of Bobo dolls the amount of imitative violence is reduced. They
also draw attention to the point that the children classified by their
teachers as more aggressive might have been ex- pected to attack the doll
more readily than the others, if such behaviour was adequate as a predictor
of real-life aggression: this was not so, and that fact, in their view,
points away from the conclusion that the findings may be generalised to real
life. Howitt and Cumberbatch, therefore, discount such experiments in
considering a link between media violence and violence in society.
6.21 Eysenck and Nias do not so much dismiss these objections, as ignore
them. They leave the unsuspecting reader ignorant that such substantial
reservations have been widely voiced about the implications of these experi-
mental studies, and this. in our view, diminishes the value of their work as
a contribution to the scientific literature. Their book is indeed aimed more
at the popular market, drawing partly on press reports to illustrate the
alleged effects of media violence (including the now celebrated Clockwork
Orange murder, but again omitting the information that the young murderer
had not actually seen the film); but we thought it a pity that the lay
reader should be presented so incautiously with only one side of the story.
It seemed to us right to be sceptical about attempts to apply the lessons of
these laboratory experiments to real life and we therefore preferred the
more non-committal view taken, in particular, by Brody. We consider that the
only objective verdict must be one of "not proven".
Analysis of crime statistics
6.22 Part of the basis for the conclusion reached by the United States Com-
mission, which we have already mentioned, was a preliminary assessment of
the trend in reported crime in Denmark following the liberalisation of the
Danish laws on pornography in the late nineteen-sixties. The controversy
surrounding the Commission prompted some people to question the thesis that
the legalisation of pornography reduced the incidence of sex crimes in
Denmark; and in time a contrary thesis emerged, that there is in fact
statisti- cal evidence indicating that the free availability of pornography
can be linked to an increase in sexual offences. This is an argument which
rests heavily on work undertaken by Dr John Court, Reader in Psychology at
the Flinders University of South Australia. and Dr Court was good enough to
submit to us several papers on the subject. The Nationwide Festival of Light
and the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association urged us to pay special
attention to Dr Court's work; and others with a more specialised interest in
the field of human behaviour, such as Professor Sir Martin Roth and
Professor H J Eysenck, made reference to Dr Court's work in the course of
giving evidence to us.
6.23 It was clearly right that we should examine this evidence in some
detail and we also think it right that we should discuss it in some detail
here 1. It has not so far been subjected to close scrutiny and we think it
important that the public should have the opportunity to assess what it
shows. The issue of whether people are more likely to be sexually assaulted
as a result of the circulation of certain kinds of publication or the
showing of certain kinds of film is obviously a very important one. But we
would not want to give the impression, by dealing with the issue at
considerable length, that we think that it is the only or the decisive
issue. We shall come in due course to other kinds of consideration.
including other concepts of harm which have been put to us, and these are
also important. A special feature of the argument about porn- graphy and sex
crimes is that the effects that have been suggested Here are claimed to be
statistically measurable.
6.24 But are they measurable? Here there are several sets of problems. The
first set concerns the number of offences. Certainly we have detailed
information about the number of sexual offences reported to the police over
a long period. However. this is not the same as knowing how many offences
occurred, since there is no means of telling how many victims decided not to
go to the police to report what happened. It is often suggested that rape
and sexual offences are peculiarly prone to non-reporting because victims
often prefer to avoid the prolongation and reinforcement of the distress
they have suffered which may result from questioning by the police and the
giving of evidence and cross-examination at a trial. We cannot be sure.
therefore, how many offences have been committed or what proportion never
come to light. The particular difficulty in examining trends in offences is
that there is no way of knowing whether the unreported proportion of
offences is remaining con- stant-in which case the trend can accurately be
assessed even though the incidence of the offences is not fully known-or
whether fluctuations are occurring in the proportion that are not reported:
victims may at different times be more or less ready to report offences,
because of changing social attitudes. or because of changes in the law or
legal procedure or police practice.
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1 We received assistance in analysing the statistics and the arguments based
on them from
the Home Office Research Unit, in particular in a paper prepared by Mr
Stephen Brody.
6.25 It follows that even apparently detailed information about the number
of offences reported to the police gives an imperfect picture of the number
of such offences; it may not even reveal whether, or by how much, the number
is increasing or decreasing from year to year. The problem gets worse if one
tries to make international comparisons. Legal systems vary considerably
between countries and differences in what constitutes a criminal offence-and
what name is given to it-often mean that comparisons which seem straight-
forward are not in fact comparing like with like. Moreover, the form and
reliability of criminal statistics varies widely from country to country.
Finally. it is too easy to look at statistics in isolation from the
procedures and social climate in the country concerned which may affect, for
example. the readiness of victims to report offences.
6.26 The second set of difficulties concerns the other side of the
correlation: the availability of pornography. The imperfections of the
information about the incidence of sexual offences are insignificant
compared with the lack of information about the availability of pornography.
There are two kinds of problems here. One relates simply to the quantity of
pornography available, about which there is very little reliable
information. The second raises the question of what kind of material we
should consider for these purposes as pornography, and whether the
differences between different kinds or degrees of pornography are likely to
produce different effects, and so should be taken into account in trying to
make correlations with the incidence of sexual offences.
6.27 Much of the evidence we received assumed that pornography had worse
effects, the more extreme it was. Thus, mild pornography consisting of
little more than "pin-up" pictures is often regarded as harmless, while the
strongest and most explicit material is commonly regarded as the most
corrupting. Yet in considering a hypothesis that sexual offences are linked
to the widespread availability of pornography, it is not obvious, on
reflection. that hard-core pornography should lead to the commission of
offences in a way that soft pornography does not. Indeed. many people might
think that if a potential sex offender were going to be triggered off by
something he saw, that effect would be produced at least as well if not
better by the titillating and erotically arousing than by the clinical
close-up. So how should one set about quantifying pornography? How should an
index of availability reflect changes in the type of material over a period
of time? How should one compare one country where soft pornography is widely
available, but hard-core material is banned, with another where hard-core
pornography is available for anyone who wants it but where pornography
generally appears to be less pervasive?
6.28 These difficulties seem to us very real, and it is a severe shortcoming
of much of the work which has been put to us that the sometimes detailed
study of criminal statistics is accompanied by only the most generalised and
unsupported statements about the availability of pornography. If no measures
exist for what is supposed to be the causal factor, it is impossible to make
any progress in attempting to relate cause to effect.
6.29 The relation of cause to effect brings in the third, central, and best-
known, problem. Even if it is possible to provide an accurate measure of two
variables. the existence of a correlation between them is certainly no proof
that one is influenced by the other. The causes of crime are undoubtedly
complex and elude isolation. Many factors are at work and much stronger
indications than a mere correlation between variables are necessary before
the existence of a causal link can even be suggested, let alone proved. The
difficulties of proving or even plausibly arguing for, causal relationships
between general or disuse social phenomena on a purely statistical basis are
sufficiently well-recognised for us not to need to dwell on them further.
England and Wales
6.30 Having drawn attention to the general considerations which limit both
the available information and the inferences which can be derived from it.
we should nevertheless look at some of the information which exists and
examine what our witnesses said about it. It is natural that we should start
at home.
6.31 First, in relation to the availability of pornography in England and
Wales, it needs to be said that no information exists to provide any kind of
index. In the papers submitted to us, Dr Court did not attempt to provide
such information. He does however treat Britain as an example of a "liberal"
country in which the detrimental effects of pornography are to be seen, and
he identifies two times at which, he suggests, pornography became
increasingly available-first with a change in the law introduced by the
Obscene Publica- tions Act of 1964, and subsequently following the impetus
of the American Commission Report on Pornography in 1970. Dr Court offers
nothing to substantiate his statement and we find his explanation of the
significance of these two dates less than convincing. As we have explained
earlier. the Obscene Publications Act 1964 was a minor measure designed to
strengthen the existing law by plugging two loopholes which had been found
in the Act of five years previously. Dr Court cites as the only authority
for his suggestion that pornography became more available after the
enactment of the 1964 Act as an article by Mr Ronald Butt in The Times on 5
February 1976 which attacked what Mr Butt then found to be the
ineffectiveness of the law in controlling pornography. Mr Butt argued that
the intention of the 1959 and 1964 Acts had been systematically destroyed
over the years by the exploitation of their letter, but nothing in his
article supports the idea that the 1964 Act opened the way to the greater
availability of pornography. Nor do we know of any authority for the
suggestion that pornography became more freely available here after 1970 as
a result of the influence of the Report of the US Commission. It seems to us
that the choice of the years 1964 and 1970 as crucial in the increasing
availability of pornography is purely arbitrary.
6.32 Our own enquiries have not placed us in a very much better position to
assess the availability of pornography over a period of time. It is the
experience of all of us that for very many years there has been a steady
trend towards greater frankness in sexual matters and greater tolerance of
the portrayal of nudity and sexual activity. This has been reflected in a
wide variety of publications and films, including those which many people
would regard as pornographic, but it does not help us to construct any kind
of index with which to compare changes in the numbers of sexual offences.
The Head of the Obscene Publications Squad of the Metropolitan Police told
us that police activity in the last six years or so had resulted in a con-
siderable reduction in the amount of hard-core pornography from overseas in
circulation, at least in London, though the police were unable to ;quantify
the amounts concerned. The same period, however, has seen a considerable
increase in the publication of British magazines with an explicit sexual
content which. particularly in the years 1975 to 1977. moved very quickly to
adopt a character much less restrained than had previously been acceptable.
These magazines were distributed throughout the country and clearly reached
a much wider audience than the undercover trade in overseas pornography ever
had; it was suggested to us by some witnesses that if sexual offences were
indeed linked to pornography, a noticeable effect should have occurred over
the last five years. However, as we have described in Chapter 4, there are
indications that the circulation of these magazines reached a peak in 1976
and has subsequently suffered a decline, aided by increasing police action
against publishers from early in 1977 and, in London, against retailers from
early in 1978. The managing director of the largest publisher in this field
stated in the trade press in June 1978, and confirmed in correspondence with
u@ that the effect of this action had been to reduce the sales of his
magazines by 40 per cent. in the first quarter of 1978.
6.33 With that patently inadequate basis for assessing the availability of
pornography, lot us nevertheless turn to the information available about the
incidence of sexual offences. Figure 1 shows the numbers of indictable
sexual offences reported to the police in every year since 1946. This gives
a longer perspective than Dr Court has offered and enables the point to be
made that sexual offences (or reports of such offences) were significantly
increasing long before pornography is alleged to have become more widely
available and Well before the "ineffective" Acts of 1959 and 1964 had a
chance to exercise their influence. Indeed, it would appear that the number
of reported offences levelled off between 1959 and 1966; though if the
figures for 1964 to 1970 are taken in isolation. an increase becomes
noticeable, even if it is less marked than that in the period 1946 to 1959.
But what is per- haps even more significant is the trend since 1973: until
the increase last year. there had been a steady fall in the number of sexual
offences known to the police. In the light of the suggestion we reported in
the preceding paragraph, this should be interesting to those who are
impressed by such correlations: a period of apparently rapid increase in the
availability of pornography seems to have been accompanied by a reduction in
the number of sexual offences reported, which was reversed in the year in
which increased police activity reportedly reduced the availability of sex
magazines.
6.34 We have also used Figure 1 to make another point of some substance,
which is that it is futile to seek to examine one class of offence in
isolation from the trend in crime generally. In our society. as in others
throughout the world, rising crime has been a matter of much concern for
many years and it is pointless to seek a special explanation for a rising
trend in sexual offences if that trend merely reflects an increase in the
general level of offences. But is that the case? In fact it is not, because
sexual offences seem to have been significantly out of step with other
offences. in that they have not shown anywhere near the same increase in
numbers over the years. This is shown dramatically in Figure 1 by comparison
with offences against the person, which have continued to rise steeply when
sexual offences have stabilised and actually fallen. The papers submitted to
us by Dr Court do not face up to this point and we think it a weakness of
his work that he has concentrated on sexual offences to the extent of
divorcing them from their context of crime generally. However, we note that
in an article published in The Times on 7 August 1976, Dr Court put forward
the proposition that the increase in serious sexual offences is greater than
the general rise in crime in countries such as the USA and Australia, but
that in Britain this has been "masked in recent years by the upsurge of
violent offences associated with the Irish problem". Given the fact that the
trend in violent crime. as Figure 1 shows, goes back at least a quarter of a
century, and given the scale of that increase, we doubt whether Dr Court
would wish to stand by that statement.
6.35 It can fairly be said that offences against the person have not been
representative of crime generally because they have increased
proportionately more than other offences. However, indictable offences as a
whole have, in comparison with just after the war, increased in number over
five times. whereas sexual offences have rather more than doubled in number.
In 1946 sexual offences accounted for 2 per cent of all indictable offences
recorded by the police. This proportion rose to almost 4 per cent in 1955
but has fallen steadily since, until in 1977 and 1978 sexual offences
accounted for less than 1 per cent of all indictable offences recorded by
the police. Whether com- pared with thirty years ago or twenty years ago or
ten years ago, sexual offences are now relatively less common among crimes
known to the police.
6.36 It can be argued, of course. that to take sexual offences as a whole
produces a misleading result, since the figures reflect changes in the law
or in sexual morality with regard to offences such as those involving homo-
sexual activity or sexual intercourse with under-age girls. Dr Court pays
special attention to rape as an offence which may be potentially
pornography- induced, and it is reasonable to regard indecent assault, among
the other sexual offences, as appropriate to the same category. Figure 2
shows the numbers of these offences reported in each year since 1946.
Offences of rape have increased faster than sexual offences as a whole,
there having been five times as many reported cases in 1978 (1,243) as in
1946 (251), but this is the same rate of increase as for all indictable
offences and a much smaller increase than for offences against the person,
which increased over twenty- fold. Offences of indecent assault on a female,
although more common, increased less dramatically than rape, very much in
line with the increase already referred to for sexual offences as a whole. A
marked fall since 1973 has been reversed in the last two years. As with
Figure 1, Figure 2 also shows how the trend for another offence of the same
order of frequency. robbery. is in contrast to that for the sexual offences
examined.
6.37 Dr Court did not devote much attention to the situation in England and
Wales. Yet he confidently observed in a published paper that "highly
significant increases are apparent for rape and attempted rape for the
period m question". The period in question, in Dr Court's thesis, is
presumably that between 1964 and 1974. then the latest year for which he
quoted figures, when the number of reported offences of rape and attempted
rape rose by 103 per cent. This period of ten years was clearly a bad one
for offences of rape, but the assertion ignores the fact that offences of
violence against the person rose over the same period by 172 per cent, and
it is not helped by the stabilisation of the number of rapes, despite the
unrelenting rise in other violent crime. in the three years after 1974. The
"significance", moreover. in Dr Court's view. is presumably linked to his
own totally unsubstantiated surmise that pornography began to be widely
available after 1964.
6.38 In his papers, Dr Court has paid rather more attention to the figures
for the Metropolitan Police District, on the ground that a greater
concentration of pornographic publications is associated with some parts of
London than with the provinces. It is certainly not true that pornography
has been confined to London but neither we nor Dr Court can offer any
evidence of the relative circulation of pornography in London and in
provincial centres. With that deficiency acknowledged, let us examine the
statistics of offences known to the police in London. Dr Court has
concentrated on the figures for rape, and Figure 3 accordingly does the same
but also shows (on a different scale) the numbers of other sexual assaults
in the years since 1947. The figures for offences of rape recorded by the
police since 1947 indicate a slightly different picture from that for the
country as a whole. Rapes have increased twice as fast in London as in the
rest of the country and have continued to increase when. in the years 1975
to 1977 they came nearer to remaining constant else- where. This is not
because crime in London has increased faster than elsewhere -the contrary is
the case-and the effect is that rape has increased much faster than
indictable offences as a whole, though still much more slowly than offences
of violence. The same is not true, however, in respect of other sexual
assaults, which have increased in London only by about the same extent as in
the country as a whole, and they showed a significant decline between 1970
and 1977. Moreover, what Figure 3 also shows in a longer perspective than Dr
Court gives is that the rising trend in rape and sexual assaults started
well before what Dr Court alleges was the first date significant for the
availability of pornography.
6.39 While we were hearing oral evidence it was reported that sexual
offences known to the police in London had risen substantially in the first
six months of 1978 compared with the same period of 1977 (rapes from 75 to
122 and sexual assaults from 550 to 741). These reports prompted some of our
witnesses to draw the conclusion that the rise was @ed to the onset of a
more active enforcement policy in the Metropolitan area, in which, from the
beginning of February 1978. scores of raids on retailers by divisional
police officers had significantly reduced the amount of pornography
available in London (we have already reported one publisher's statement of
the effect on his sales). A reduc- tion in sexual assaults during a period
when pornography is widely available, followed by an increase when curbs are
placed on the trade, hardly bears out the hypothesis that pornography
stimulates sex crimes; but we do not think that the figures for one period
of six months or for a year (now that the statistics for 1978 as a whole
confirm the increase apparent in the half-year figures) can be used as the
basis for any conclusions. Arguments of a similar kind were put to us in
relation to the rate of sex crime in Manchester, where there has also been a
policy of rigorous enforcement of the law on obscene publications. but we
came to the conclusion from a more detailed examination of the statistics
that the arguments were insufficiently supported.
6.40 We must at this point refer again to the problem of knowing how large
the "dark area" of sexual crime is. The figures for rapes known to the
police certainly underestimate the incidence of such offences. However,
there may be, grounds for thinking that there has recently been an increase
in the level of reporting of cases of rape, and this could be reflected in
the latest figures. There is a greater consciousness of the problem of rape,
partly associated with the development of organisations such as Rape Crisis
Centres, and greater protec- tion is now afforded to complainants in rape
cases under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1976 (which provides for
their anonymity and imposing certain restrictions on their
cross-examination); because of these factors. rape victims may be more
willing to go to the police, and this may have increased the official
statistics.
6.41 We now attempt to summarise what has emerged from this study of the
arguments linking pornography and sexual offences in England and Wales.
First, there is no firm information about the availability of pornography
over the years, and there is no foundation to suggestions that have been
made about particular times at which pornography became increasingly
available. Second, the rising trend in sexual offences generally, including
rape and sexual assault started long before it is alleged pornography began
to be widely available. Third, the increase in sexual offences generally,
and in rape and sexual assaults, has been significantly slower (though in
the case of rape alone the difference is less significant) in the last
twenty years than that in crime generally. Fourth, the contrast between the
upward trend in crime generally and the greater stability in the numbers of
rapes and sexual assaults has been most marked in the years from 1973 to
1977 (except in the case of rapes alone reported to the police in London
where the increase is consistent with that in other forms of crime), when
this period appears to have been the one when pornography was most
available.
6.42 So, what conclusions can be drawn? We have already referred briefly to
the extreme difficulty of identifying causal factors in the incidence of
crime but, in the light of the findings we have set out above, we see no
need to develop that argument. Ale case put to us by Dr Court, and by other
witnesses who have looked to Dr Court's work for support. cannot on the
basis of the situation in England and Wales, we believe, even survive as a
plausible hypothesis. Each of the findings in the preceding paragraph stands
opposed to it. Consider Figure 4, which shows the relative importance of the
numbers of rapes and sexual assaults in the totality of crime. We think it
unlikely that any fair- minded person would, on the basis of the information
depicted in that graph, feel the need to construct a special hypothesis to
explain the increase in sex crimes, still less that the hypothesis
constructed would be that an alleged increase in the availability of
pornography first after 1964 and secondly since 1970 (increases for which
there is no independent evidence) provided a crucial
influence in the growth in such offences.
6.43 We are not denying the possibility that pornography could be linked to
the commission of sexual offences. Nor are we suggesting, on the other hand,
as the data in Figure 4 encourage some to suggest, that the availability of
pornography is associated actually with a decline (or at any rate a
reduction in the rate of rise) in sexual offences. It might be. for example,
that if only information were available about the amount of pornography in
circulation some kind of correlation might be possible; it might be that
whatever the factors are which have given rise to the substantial increases
in most other forms of crime, they do not operate in respect of sexual
offences and therefore some other separate explanation of the more modest
growth in sexual crime has to be sought; it may be that there has been a
substantial reduction in the willingness of victims of rape and sexual
assault to complain to the police, so that the true number of offences. and
the trend. is quite different from what appears in the criminal statistics.
These are, we say. possible: but we do not think they are probable. It is
not possible. in our view, to reach well-based conclusions about what 'm
this count has been the influence of pornography on sexual crime. But we
unhesitatingly reject the suggestion that the available, statistical
information for England and Wales lends any support at all to the argument
that pornography acts as a stimulus to the commission of sexual violence.
Denmark
6.44 The main 'international interest in a possible link between pornography
and sex crimes has centred on Denmark and on what was the result in that
country of the abolition of the laws restricting pornography. A feature of
the Danish situation which is thought to make it a helpful subject for study
is that the change was a quick one. with the prohibition on the obscene
written word being abolished in 1967 and that on obscene pictorial matter
being abolished in 1969. Although pornography, particularly of the softer
variety, had been increasingly available before the law was changed, the
fairly rapid move from the restricted availability of pornography to its
being widely available, is con- sidered to facilitate a "before" and "after"
study in a way that is impossible with the more gradual increase in the
availability of pornography in countries such as Britain; and the fact that
it has continued to be available would lead one to expect that any adverse
effects there might be would manifest themselves. Even so. the fact that
pornography is freely available does not tell one how much is in circulation
or is being consumed, data which might be the more appropriate measure with
which to compare the incidence of sexual offences; information suggests that
sales of pornography in Denmark slumped drastically after an initial boom
which accompanied the removal of legal restrictions. Nevertheless, it is
reasonable to assume that one is in a better position in the case of Denmark
to provide an index of the availability of pornography than one is in the
case of England and Wales.
6.45 There has grown up something of a folk myth about the effect of the
Danish liberalisation on the incidence of sexual offences. This may have
resulted from the general way in which studies of the Danish situation were
reported, before the studies themselves became available, in the Report of
the United States Commission on Obscenity and Pornography in 1970. It is
often said. and it was said to us, that the freeing of pornography in
Denmark resulted in a decline in sexual offences, but this kind of unguarded
statement is very vulnerable to attack. Authoritative claims about the
Danish experience are a good deal more limited. The most detailed work has
been undertaken by Dr Berl Kutchinsky of the Institute of Criminal Science
at the University of Copenhagen, a preliminary study by him having been
commissioned by the United States Commission in 1969. That study permitted
only first impressions to be given of the results of the changes made in
1967 and 1969. though we think it right to make the point that even Dr
Court, who has sought to detract from Dr Kutchinsky's work. made it clear to
us that he regards those reports as careful, detailed and appropriately
cautious about the conclusion which might be drawn. Dr Kutchinsky has
continued his work since 1970. and we had the opportunity of discussing it
with him,. but the more detailed assessment he has been preparing of the
effect of Denmark's legal changes on the incidence of sexual offences has
not yet been published. This means that most of the debate has so far been
based either on a thorough study of statistics up to 1970 or on a more.
superficial examination of statistics since that date.
6.46 It is useful first to identify some of the problems involved in making
comparisons. First, various changes were made to the Danish law on sexual
offences at about the same time that pornography was legalised; this has led
Mrs Mary Whitehouse, to make the point that of course sex crimes will
diminish very significantly if eleven categories of sex crime are removed
from the statute book. Dr Court makes a similar point in a more discreet way
by suggesting that some of Kutchinsky's data apparently were influenced by
legislative changes", while admitting that "it is true to say that the
reported decline does not arise from legislative change,". Dr Kutchinsky
assured us that he had been most careful in excluding from his figures any
offence in respect of which any liberalisation had occurred, in order to
avoid the obvious pitfall identified by Mrs Whitehouse. There are of course
other disadvantages in leaving out of account offences in respect of which
there have been legal changes, since it can. be suggested (as by Dr Court)
that this itself may lead to serious effects being masked; but there is
really no alternative, from the methodological point of view. to omitting
figures for offences where there can be no proper compara- bility.
6.47 Second, it can be suggested that there has been an alteration in the
rate of reporting of certain offences because of the different atmosphere
itself partly caused by changes in *e law. Dr Kutchinsky has recognised this
possibility and Dr Court has commented that he has made a commendable
attempt to measure changes in the readiness to report offences. Part of Dr
Kutchinsky's study has been of public attitudes towards the criminality of
certain acts, which, for example, demonstrated a generation shift in
attitude towards physical indecency with women, but no similar change in
attitude towards the molesta- tion of children. A study was also made of the
relative seriousness of reported offences, the detailed results of which
indicated that for such offences as physical indecency with women the less
serious offences were now much less likely to be considered worth reporting,
while there had been no similar change in the seriousness of the reported
offences of molesting children. Dr. Kutchinsky's conclusion from this is
that a drop in the number of reported assaults on women is at least partly
explained by the fact that fewer women bother to report them, but that, with
regard to sexual offences against children, the fall in the number reported
to the police does in fact represent a falling-off in the number of such
offences actually committed.
6.48 It seemed to us, however, that there was still a need for caution in
interpreting these findings. Another factor. for example, to affect the rate
of reporting of offences against children might be a growing belief that a
child could be further harmed by the court procedures involved. This factor
might affect the reporting of offences of all degrees of gravity, and if so,
would not be reflected in any changes in the seriousness of reported
offences. Dr Kutchinsky's extensive studies do go some way to meet this
point: they include a survey of attitudes towards readiness to report, which
appears to show that this factor was of some effect. but that the decrease
in readiness to report offences against children was less, relatively. than
it was with other offences studied.
6.49 According to Dr Kutchinsky, the incidence of reported sex offences
before the liberalisation of pornography had remained steady for twenty.
years, at about 85 cases per annum per 100,000 of the population. In 1967
this dropped to 67 and continued to fall to a level of about 40. This was
very much an urban phenomenon, offences in the capital, having decreased by
75-80% compared with very little change in the already lower level in rural
areas. Ordinary heterosexual crimes unaffected by changes in the law dropped
con- sistently, most noticeably after 1966, from just over 100 per 100,000
to less than 30 in 1973. and then levelled off.
6.50 This overall trend, however, conceals a variety of changes in relation
to particular types of offence, and it is more instructive to examine what
hap- pened to different types. Dr Court has. as in respect of other
countries, concentrated on rape. Figure 5 shows offences of rape and
attempted rape reported to the police in Copenhagen, based both on figures
for the years since 1965 given to us by the Police Commissioner for
Copenhagen, and on figures published by Dr Kutchinsky in 1973. Even these
are not the only figures which have been quoted, and Dr Court has commented
that the incidence of rape in Copenhagen over the past 15 years is more
difficult to establish than might be supposed. The variation evident in
Figure 5 arises from reservations which Dr Kutchinsky has had about the
recording practice of the police. His workers have examined police records
to reassess against agreed criteria the nature of every reported case,
including those where complaints had been withdrawn or where the police had
decided that no offence had been committed. As a result. Dr Kutchinsky has a
statistical record of sexual offences which differs from that issued by the
police. but which he regards as more accurate and reliable. This explains
the discrepancy 'm the figures up to 1970 which Dr Kutchinsky has already
published, and which he will be bringing up to date when he publishes his
forthcoming book.
6.51 Whichever set of figures is regarded as the more reliable, it is
impossible to discern a significant trend in rape which could be linked in
any way with the free availability of pornography since the late
nineteen-sixties. Dr Kutchinsky emphasises that he has never suggested that
such a link exists, and said to us that be believed that the availability of
pornography had not affected the incidence of rape, one way or the other. Dr
Court sees the figures as evidence that generalised statements about the
"sudden fall-off in sex crimes" are based on an illusion., but he has gone
further, and, lacking the figures for recent years which we have included in
Figure 5, has stated that by 1974 at least "the trend towards an increase in
reports of rape and attempted rape was clear"-a statement which he has not
supported with figures. Figures for the years since 1972 show that there is
in fact no such, trend, and although Figure 5 stands as a reproof to those
who have drawn a conclusion that serious sex crimes have declined since
pornography became widely available in Denmark, it certainly provides no
support at all for the thesis put to us by Dr Court.
6.52 Dr Kutchinsky has made a particular study of four types of offences
which were among those showing the largest decline in numbers since 1965.
These are: peeping, exhibitionism, indecent assaults on women and indecent
assaults on young girls. The preliminary conclusions which Dr Kutchinsky
reported to the United States Commission-which he emphasised to be only
tentative-were that changes in the readiness of women to report sexual
assaults were apparently large enough to account for the decrease in
reported offences of that type during the nineteen-sixties; that the
reduction in reported cases of indecent exposure could also be explained by
a decrease in readiness to report. but that this reduction seemed to
parallel more closely the availability of pornography, something which might
possibly be explained by the effect of pornography having been that fewer
women were so shocked by real-life exposure as to think it worth reporting.,
and that the reduction in reported cases of peeping and of indecent assaults
on children could not be explained by lower reporting rates, but reflected
an actual drop in the number of such offences committed, and that this could
be tentatively explained by the effect of pornography being available.
6.53 Since peeping does not even constitute an offence in England and Wales
(those indulging in the practice are sometimes bound over to DC of good
behaviour), the most significant of these tentative findings for us is that
concerning offences against children. We discussed it with Dr Kutchinsky who
confirmed that his later work has supported his view that there has been a
real and significant reduction in indecent assaults on female children, and
that this very closely correlated with the availability of pornography. The
dramatic reduction of two-thirds in the number of sex offences against
children between 1967 and 1969 was difficult to explain other than in
relation to the availability of pornography. and it was also notable that
1973 was the last year in which a significant, increase occurred in the
availability of child pornography. and was also the year after which the
drop in offences levelled off.
6.54 In looking for an explanation of this perceived relationship, Dr
Kutchinsky suggests that the literature concerning this type of offender
indicates that those who interfere with children typically do so not because
they are irresistibly attracted to children, but as a substitute for a
preferred relationship with a woman which they find difficult to achieve;
but if there is another substitute available in the form of pornography.
then that serves the purpose just as well. The fact that the reduction was
most significant in offences involving younger children and loss so in
relation to more "normal" offences against older. girls supported the
hypothesis.
6.55 We find it difficult to draw any firm conclusions about these more
specific matters. While we were impressed by the thoroughness with which Dr
Kutchinsky had studied the situation and the restraint with which he sought
to derive lessons from his findings, the fact remains that correlation
studies are a weak research tool, partly because of the difficulties of
measure- ment-which still exist in relation to both the availability of
pornography and the incidence of offences in Denmark, in spite of Dr
Kutchinsky's considerable efforts to overcome them-and partly because of the
impossibility of translating a correlation into cause and effect. A common
explanation of a correlation between two sets of social data is that each is
affected by some third, possibly unknown, factor and no matter how strong a
correlation, it can never, bearing in mind all the other factors and
influences that are also present, "Prove" any- thing. We recognise, however,
that Dr Kutchinsky has identified a very dramatic reduction in reported
offences against children which coincided with the sudden upsurge in the
availability of pornography and which, in consequence of the careful studies
undertaken by Dr Kutchinsky, cannot readily be explained by any other likely
factor. While Dr Kutchinsky's explanation can- not be conclusive, we have to
admit that it is plausible.
6.56 Dr Court has not commented at all on this finding of Dr Kutchinsky,
other than in making general criticisms of Dr Kutchinsky's work, some Of
which are patently mistaken and others apparently unjust, and in stressing
that a direct causal relationship. given the nature of the problem, could
never be demonstrated. It seemed to us that because the Danish experience is
in Dr Court's description "counter-intuitive"', his faith in his intuition
has led him to the view "that it must be assumed to be false". In these
circumstances he has sought to cast as much doubt as he can on the findings,
even when that has meant attacking secondary reporting rather than the
original work, Persisting in allegations of error which we were assured he
had been told were false, quoting polemicists as if they were scientific
sources. and resorting to a general broadside on Dr Kutchinsky's figures as
being "utterly misleading". We have examined with some care the work of both
Dr Kutchinsky and Dr Court in relation to the situation in Denmark and have
to say that Dr Kutchinsky's is in every respect more impressive: it is
comprehensive, detailed and scrupulously careful. Dr Court has made no
pretensions to a study of equal thoroughness and, having looked at each of
the points he has made about Dr Kutchinsky's work, we find that the one to
which most weight attaches concerns just the absolutely general difficulty
of trying to draw conclusions from the examination of statistics of this
kind. However. the conclusion which is inevitable from reading the
voluminous papers by Dr Court and Dr Kutchinsky is that it is Dr Court who
has felt the less inhibited by the argument and who has based far broader
conclusions on a much more rudimentary framework of information. If Dr Court
were to be bound by the restraints which he urges the reader to apply in
judging Dr Kutchinsky's work, his case would collapse entirely.
Other countries
6.57 We have discussed the incidence of sexual offences in England and Wales
and in Denmark at greater length than Dr Court has in any of the papers he
submitted to us because we think it important that more light should be
thrown on the subject so that the objective reader may reach his own
conclusions about Dr Court's case. Dr Court has additionally referred to a
number of other countries, such as Australia, the United States of America,
New Zealand, Sweden, South Africa, Japan and Singapore, but we do not think
it necessary to deal in detail with the situation in all of these countries.
This reference to Sweden, for example, appeared to be based on nothing more
in the way of evidence than one sentence from an article published in 1962
in The Spectator; and all his other references were subject to the same
severe criticisms that we have already mentioned, in that he produces no
evidence on which an index of the availability of pornography may be con-
structed; his treatment of statistics of criminal offences is superficial
and fluctuations in the figures for rape are never viewed in the context of
trends in crime as a whole; and he shows an unscientific readiness to
associate any rise in rape statistics with the influence of pornography.
6.58 A fellow South Australian writer who has criticised Dr Court 1 has
drawn attention to the fact that although Dr Court Picks out Singapore as
illustrating the association between the restriction of pornography and a
stable rate of rape, in order to contrast it with a city such as London
where a permissive attitude towards pornography is coupled with an
increasing incidence of rape, rapes are, on the figures quoted by Dr Court,
actually more common in Singapore than in London. Dr Court may retort that
to make such a comparison ignores the difficulties in assuming a similarity
of legal definition cultural attitudes, police strength etc, but it seems to
us that it is equally hazardous to take the statistics of rape for an
unfamiliar country and to attempt to relate them to a vague idea of the
extent to which pornography is and has been available in that country. again
in total isolation from cultural traditions, the state of the law and social
developments. Dr Court has made no attempt to place the developments he
briefly chronicles in their social context.
------------------------------------------------------------
1 P Cochrane, Sex crimes and pornography revisited. International Journal of
Criminology
and Penology 1978, 6, 307-317.
6.59 We are satisfied that Dr Court's publications about pornography are
more successful in expressing condemnation of pornography than they are in
giving the study of its effects a sound scientific basis. We discount his
evidence and, to the extent that they rely on his work, the evidence of
those who quote him.
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