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26 Law & Soc'y Rev. 447 (1992)
The Politics of Pornography Research

handle is hein.journals/lwsocrw26 and id is 457 raw text is: Comment 'The Politics of Pornography Research Ber Kutchinsky I n his review essay on three recent books on pornography, harms, and politics in Law & Society Review, Steven Childress (1991) has transmitted false information about my criminologi- cal research on pornography. Since such misinformation is, in part, responsible for considerable confusion about the out- come of aggregate studies of the effects of pornography on sex crimes, redress is necessary. Misinformation about crucial por- nography research may have serious consequences for pornog- raphy politics and makes one wonder about the politics of por- nography research. I Reviewing The Question of Pornography, Research Findings and Policy Implications by Donnerstein, Lintz, and Penrod (1987), Childress writes: Following on the Denmark studies, which found large and lasting drops in crime rates after pornography became widespread, researchers measured similar correlations worldwide (pp. 186-87). Both the Denmark studies and the researchers refer to my research on the development of sex offenses in Denmark and elsewhere (Kutchinsky 1971, 1973, 1985-all referred to by Donnerstein et al.).t Childress does not mention my name or publications. In the next sentence we are told: Some, notably Court (1984), have pointed out the weaknesses of the earlier studies, espe- cially their focus on reported rates of some decriminalized sex of- fenses (p. 187; my emphasis). Childress then goes on to men- I Ben-Veniste (1971) published a brief report on pornography and sex crime in Denmark. This report, which, of course, could not deal with the long-term develop- ments of crime rates, was in accord with and prepared under the same contract as my own original research for the U.S. Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. Law & Society Review, Volume 26, Number 2 (1992)

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