The porn-crime connection By SUSAN BRINKMANN
CS&T Correspondent
When an 8-year-old girl was molested and left unconscious in the restroom of a downtown Philadelphia library, it took several days before one of the most salient facts in the case was made public.
The perpetrator was a known cruiser of Internet porn sites.
Why wouldn’t the public be told about this connection between porn and a sex crime?
Robert Peters, the president of Morality in Media, provides a possible answer to this question in his recently published article, “The Link Between Pornography and Violent Sex Crime.”
“The effect that pornography has in the commission of violent sex crimes is difficult, if not impossible, to measure scientifically. Perhaps in part for that reason, the link between pornography and violent sex crimes is often omitted or not taken seriously by the secular news media in their coverage of pornography, the pornography industry or violent sexual crimes.”
What might seem implausible according to science, however, is a generally accepted fact among those in law enforcement.
For instance, notorious serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy were heavy consumers of pornography. David Berkowitz, known as the “Son of Sam” killer, lived in a rented room that police found filled with pornography and satanic material. The computer owned by the killer of 7-year-old Danielle Van Dam was loaded with child pornography.
According to retired N.Y. Police Department detective Ray Pierce, the founder of the department’s Criminal Assessment and Profiling Unit, the link between porn and violent crime is all too real. Pierce investigated between 750 and 1,000 cases of sexual murder, rape or adult assault in his career. Of those cases, 80 percent of the suspects were regular users of porn.
“Particularly with serial killers, they have a great problem with power and control,” Pierce said. “… There was … a Maryland case, they found over 160 pornography photos of different women — many, many photos … and many were victims of this killer. …”
Vernon Geberth, a retired lieutenant commander of the New York Police Department’s Bronx homicide squad and a nationally known homicide investigator, authored a book entitled, “Sex Related Homicide and Death Investigations: Practical and Clinical Perspectives” to help crime fighters. Some of the cases he cites give irrefutable proof of the connection between porn and violent crime.
“… The suspect made multiple 1-(900) sex line phone calls throughout the day and night from the victim’s residence. He also brought pornographic magazines to the scene. …”
In the case of murderer Cameron Hooker, Geberth said his sadistic sexual fantasies “were fueled by an extensive collection of hard-core pornography. …” One victim told police she looked through the bottom of her blindfold and saw her attacker referring to a pornographic picture of a woman who was enduring the exact same type of assault.
In another case, Geberth noted, “Frank had positioned his wife’s body in a pose similar to some of the drawings police recovered … from the crime scene. … There were also 83 men’s magazines, including “High Society,” “Gallery” and “Penthouse.” Many of the magazines had pages removed, including pictures of centerfolds with stab marks …” or with “knife holes and simulated bullet holes. …”
Robert H. Macy, district attorney in Oklahoma City, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on July 23, 1991 and said that he was once a “doubting Thomas” when it came to the link between pornography and sex crimes.
He did, however, assist in devising and implementing a strategy to try to eliminate as many pornography and sex-oriented businesses in Oklahoma City as possible. The police there successfully shut down dozens of adult bookstores, peep show operations, topless bars, houses of prostitution. They even removed porn films from local cable TV.
“They tell you that you can’t prosecute porn and obscenity cases. I am here to tell you they can,” Macy told the committee. “To give you an idea of what happened when we cracked down … in five years, the number of rapes dropped by almost 25 percent. …”
A few years later, the Miami University of Ohio Applied Research Center found an even more obvious link between the effects of adult entertainment businesses and local crime. Their research found that the presence of porn establishments significantly (by at least 50 percent) increased the rate of drunk driving (84 percent), drug trafficking (82 percent), prostitution (73 percent), violent crime (63 percent), sex crime (54 percent).
Unfortunately, information about the harmful affects of pornography rarely receive air time due to the American Civil Liberty Union’s tactic of crying “censorship” at even the slightest implication that porn should be suppressed. The ACLU insists upon something more than crime scene evidence linking porn to sex crimes. Specifically, they want scientific evidence, something the Supreme Court doesn’t even require in order to justify restriction of porn.
In Paris Adult Theater I et al v. Staton, the U.S. Supreme Court clearly dismissed the need for conclusive scientific data: “… It is argued that there are no scientific data which conclusively demonstrate that exposure to obscene material adversely affects men or women or their society. … We reject that argument. … If we accept … the well nigh universal belief that good books, plays and art lift the spirit, improve the mind, enrich the human personality and develop character, can we then say that … commerce in obscene books, or public exhibitions focused on obscene conduct, have a tendency to exert a corrupting and debasing impact leading to antisocial behavior? ‘Many of these effects may be intangible, but they are nonetheless real.’”
Dr. Reo Christianson, retired Professor of Political Science at Miami University, Ohio, wrote in the November 1998 issue of American Family Association Journal: “The ACLU … has become shrill, dogmatic and close-minded on the issue of pornography. … ‘No censorship,’ it cries, hoping that buzz word will frighten people from exercising independent thought in this field. … Doctrinaire liberals worship only one god, and it’s name is the ACLU. When this deity speaks, they ... suspend critical judgment and parrot its lines. And feel smug and superior to the great and unenlightened masses who, being clear-eyed rather than dogma-ridden, regard pornography as a disgrace which ought to be curbed.”
The U.S. Supreme Court realizes that restricting pornogrphy is necessary. As Chief Justice Earl Warren stated, “There is a ‘right of the Nation and of the states to maintain a decent society. …’”
Robert Peters’ full report can be found at: www.obscenitycrimes.org
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