Original scientific paper
Testing the Influence of Pornography on Sexual Violence in Croatia: The Public Crime Statistics Approach
Ivan LANDRIPET
Abstract
Worldwide research of the effects of pornography use on
attitudes and behavior has predominantly been of
microscopic and experimental nature, with considerably less
studies based upon "macro" perspectives and involving mid-
-range theories. One such approach focuses on the dynamics
of sex crime during a time span sufficiently long to cover
transition from pornographic scarcity to abundance of easily
available sexually explicit material (the dynamics of sexual
crime is controlled by the dynamics of the comparable non-
-sexual crime). This paper implements "the public crime
statistics approach" to the case of Croatia. The time range of
tracking and comparing temporal trends of the aggravated
-sexual and non-sexual crime (rape and sexual assault versus
murder and assault) spans from 1978, through 2003.
Comparable to all the national studies conducted so far, the
results do not support the notion of significant and independent
increase in sex crime conditioned by the increase in
pornography availability, but rather indicate (in the case of
Croatia) certain structural causes that determine somewhat
matching trends both of sexual and non-sexual violence.
Keywords
pornography; sexual violence; rape; public statistics; legislative
Hrčak ID:
18931
URI
Publication date:
30.4.2007.
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