NCJ Number
109133
Date Published
1987
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Efforts to combat international and interstate trafficking of obscenity as well as mass production and distribution of child pornography are examined in terms of the infiltration by organized crime.
Abstract
Organized crime involvement in pornography is significant. According to testimony before the Pornography Commission in 1986, organized crime infiltrated the pornography industry in 1969 through well-known crime families. By 1975, organized crime controlled 80 percent of the obscenity industry. Studies indicate that obscenity and child pornography are now regular features of the organized crime profile. Obscenity as a legal term denotes the more violent and offensive forms of pornography which have been declared by the U.S. Supreme Court to be outside the scope of first amendment protection. Child pornography often is obscenity, but unlike some other forms of pornography, does not enjoy protection under the first amendment. There is a disturbing correlation between pornography and child molestation as indicated by recent research. Of the 100 child pornography Federal indictments resulting from a nationwide sting operation, evidence of child molestation by consumers of child pornography was found in 35 cases. A 1986 report from the California attorney general on organized crime indicates that the obscenity trade industry takes in between $7 billion and $10 billion annually. The Federal Obscenity Task Force and the Obscenity Law Center are the centerpiece of a major Federal initiative to bring about more effective obscenity and child pornography prosecutions. In addition, a joint nationwide sting operation, conducted by the U.S. Customs and Postal Inspections Services, is expected to net more than 200 child pornography indictments before this cooperative effort ends.