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From: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,net.legal
Subject: Re: Attorney General's Commission on Pornography
Message-ID: <2284@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Sep-86 16:47:07 EDT
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Posted: Thu Sep 18 16:47:07 1986
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Xref: mnetor talk.politics.misc:177 net.legal:3609

> >> ...the existing population-based evidence for the United States shows a
> >> correlation between circulation rates of magazines containing pornography
> >> (primarily of a non-violent type) and rates of reported rape in the fifty
> >> states during that time, even after many other factors were statistically
> >> controlled.
>  
> >Second, rates of reported rape are not evenly distributed over the
> >population.  For example, the per capita incidence of all violent crimes
> >(including rape) is higher in areas of high population density.  (Studies
> >with rats indicate that crowding stress may be a factor.)  A higher
> >population density would tend to increase magazine circulation (through
> >higher availability and more acceptance).
> 
> 	You do not go far enough, the rates of violent crimes also
> vary substantially from one *neighborhood* to the next! Right now
> sales of pornographic materials are largely restricted to those areas
> where the crime rate would be high anyway, due to such sales being
> itself a crime. I am far from convinced that the cited correlation
> would hold up if pornography were legalized.
> 	As a matter of fact, I looked at one of the studies mentioned.
> It was one of the worst pieces of statistical garbage I have ever
> seen! The unit of study was the *state*; not even the city, let alone
> the neighborhood!?!? And the statistical control of "other factors"
> was inadequate, to say the least. Only a few, rather naive, alternative
> models were adjusted for. *Nothing* in the study adjusted for the
> illegality of pornography and the effect that would have on its
> distribution. There was no attempt to make time based correlations to
> seperate cause and effect(i.e. they forgot to find out which came
> first, the rise in crime rate or the increase in sales of pornography).
> If that study is typical of the ones the Meese Commision used in the
> above conclusion, the very correlation is doubtful.
> 
> 				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)
> 
When I looked to data, the rape indicator for Massachusetts and Utah
were almost even, and NY was by far not the worst.  Among the cities,
Tallahasee, FL, was the worst.  There seems to be fairly strong 
correlation between the rape indicator and climate (i.e. Minnesota,
Maine, Dakotas the best while Florida and Texas on the other side).
I am strongly convinced that this correlations (as applied to states)
is much stronger than the correlation witt sales of porn.

In particular, I live in a small campus town with porn available on
campus (mild, approved variety) and off campus (you can get a little 
racier).  Another campus town, in FL has much higher number of rapes.
Is it because
  a.  it is easier to rape during warm southern nights than in
      the frigid Pennsylvania (summmer is good, but then the nights
      are short and most of the students are back home), or
  b.  the porno available in FL is so much worse.

Now, when you take climate into account, the effects of porno may
be noticed: Boston has colder climate, and yet similar rape indicator
as Salt Lake City.  Where it is easier to see an X-rated movie?

Seriously, once we need to factor out the dominant factors (like
climate, urbanization etc.), we can get all nice and meaningless
correlation.

The use of statistic is a powerful weapon.  At the beginning of
this century, statisticians of Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia
were involved in so called Balcan wars.  Nobody was more bloodthirsty
than those guys: they were decimating all hostile nations without
mercy (e.g. Macedonia after an 'attack' of Bulgarian statisticians had 
no Serbs left, very few Greeks and Turks, while after Serbian 'counter-
offensive', the number of Serbs was increasing by at least million, 
as Bulgarians were perishing in equal numbers).
Bulgarians, while also no Bulgarians and 
Serbians wou