The effects of conservative and liberal policies toward pornography on changes in sex crime rates are compared for the offense of rape and attempted rape in South Africa, the United States, and other selected Western and Far Eastern countries.
For some years debate has centered on whether increased availability of explicit erotic materials would have adverse or beneficial social consequences. Advocates of a liberal approach to censorship have argued for reduced prohibitions of sexual materials, and the conservatives have argued for a retention of controls over the presentation of sexual themes, believing that removal of restraints would lead to antisocial sexual acts and a decline in standards of sexual morality. South Africa, due to its conservative policies on pornography, provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the consequences upon sex crime rates of contrasting legislative policies on pornography. The sex offense that most lends itself to statistical comparability is the crime of rape. An analysis of rape rates in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States shows a striking increase in the past 15 years that has occurred immediately after liberalizing changes in the pornography laws. Both Denmark and Sweden have also reported large increases in rape offenses. In Australia, liberal policies in the province of South Australia have been associated with a marked rise in rape offenses. However, conservative pornography policies in Japan and Singapore correlate with negligible rises in rape offenses. Moreover, a rise of 32 precent in rape offenses committed by Whites in South Africa from 1960-62 to 1974-77 contrasts with increases over 100 percent in many Western countries with liberal pornography policies during the same period. Overall, a positive link between the availability of pornography and the incidence of rape may be postulated because rises have occurred where pornography legislation has been liberalized, the rises have been closely related in time to those legislative changes, and comparable rises have not occurred where pornography has not become widely available. Two tables and footnotes are provided.