Should prisoners have a "right" to porn?

[Jekyll's Guest]

Yes, I'm sure they actually forget what a naked woman looks like and have trouble masturbating with no porn to remind them.

Same question to you, as above.

 

[Antiquehunter]

What's the longest you've ever went without seeing a nude or semi-nude woman? In the flesh or an image.

Well I'm gay, so you're probably asking me the wrong question. (Most) prisoners have access to televisions, other forms of media like magazines and books I believe, do they not? Plenty of images of women, many of which are sexy / semi-nude there.

 

[ThunderChunky]

You only say that because you see women most every day.

Try not seeing a naked woman for a decade, see how much well your memory works.

Besides, men respond strongly to sexual imagery.

It would work fine...not that I will try it, but your assumption on the point is baseless. Masturbation is mostly physical, the mental just accelerates the process.

Prisoners have as much a right and need for porn as they do for video games (and hookers). Speaking of hookers, why not just allow more conjugal visits?

 

[Ocelot]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2032762



First study I found that addressed the issue. Not exactly a systematic review but hey at least it's something more than Bare Assertion.

Still asking for evidence still not addressing the first abstract I dug up.

Oh well here's a couple more

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1973.tb00094.x/abstract

The Danish liberalization of legal prosecution and of laws concerning pornography and the ensuing high availability of such materials present a unique opportunity of testing hypotheses concerning the relationship between pornography and sex offenses. It is shown that concurrently with the increasing availability of pornography there was a significant decrease in the number of sex offenses registered by the police in Copenhagen. On the basis of various investigations, including a survey of public attitudes and studies of the police, it was established that at least in one type of offense (child molestation) the decrease represents a real reduction in the number of offenses committed. Various factors suggest that the availability of pornography was the direct cause of this decrease.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/t1h0056032220l05/

Most famous of these is the 1970 report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, which concluded that it "empirical investigation provided no evidence that exposure to or use of explicity sexual materials plays a significant role in the causation of social or individual harm" (Barnes 1970)
The Kronhausens (1969) believed that not only was pornography not harmful, it may actually beneficial: "Instead of the comic magazines or even hardcore pornography causing sex murders or other criminal acts, it is far more likely that these unholy instruments may be more often than not a safty valve of the sexual devient and potential sex offender"
This "catharsis model" of pornography was experimentaly tested a decade and a half later. Howard et al (1973), exposed 23 subjects to pornographic materials for 90 min per day for 15 days, and concluded that exposure to pornography had no detrimental effect on the subjects and actually led to a steadily decreasing interest.

I'll pop back here in a couple of days and see if you're still playing at the equivalent of Nelson holding his telescope to his blind eye and stating "I see no ships" or if those claiming that they've seen no evidence have backed that up by actively looking at the broad evidence base and found the studies which equivocate over the matters that I've presneted here subject to myu own confiormation bias.

If we want to see the best of skepticism, this will have moved on to discussing the various merits of these differing studies such as the direct empirical sampling of real sex crime vs the use of proxies, or the size of studies. I might even forgive a little bit of special pleading^WP given that we're talking about a an atypical scenario, so long as the pleader has at least demonstrated some effort to refer to the evidence base.

Calling for evidence is in the best skeptical traditions but unless this is coupled with an active interest in seeking out and evaluating that evidence this is just rhetoric, as is hiding behind burden of proof arguments. Sure if someone is hiding behind a genuine lack of evidence to speculate wildly then Russel's teapot is appropriate. However there's no lack of evidence in this field and repeatedly asserting that you haven't seen the evidence is hollow when it simply tells us that not only are you not prepepared to ask google for it but you're also incapable of scrolling up to see where it's already been provided in this very thread.

 

[Antiquehunter]

Ocelot - well, while those studies show that pornography is not necessarily going to inspire prisoners to go bananas and increase the number of sexual assaults in prison, that still doesn't mean that they should have a 'right' to accessing pornography in prison.

Prisons serve two functions as I see them - to punish & to rehabilitate. Someone serving10 years for a bank robbery, and who presumably doesn't have any sexual 'issues' going into prison, can reasonably be deprived of access to pornography.

So while they're interesting studies, they don't inspire me to take the conclusion that pornography in prisons is helpful in any way.

 

[Ocelot]

Ocelot - well, while those studies show that pornography is not necessarily going to inspire prisoners to go bananas and increase the number of sexual assaults in prison, that still doesn't mean that they should have a 'right' to accessing pornography in prison.

Prisons serve two functions as I see them - to punish & to rehabilitate. Someone serving10 years for a bank robbery, and who presumably doesn't have any sexual 'issues' going into prison, can reasonably be deprived of access to pornography.

So while they're interesting studies, they don't inspire me to take the conclusion that pornography in prisons is helpful in any way.

Well they do more than say that access to pornography doesn't increase rape. They suggest that it would actually reduce rape. It might be argued that this is helpful.

As it is I haven't made the argument that this means that prisoners have a right to porn. Whilst I'm quite happy for prisoners to have access to porn (seeing no harm in it) that doesn't translate to them having the right.

Such an argument might start with suggesting that prisoners have a right not to be raped and see where that takes us. Or examining why certain rights enjoyed in the outside world are denied once incarcerated and see if access to pornography fits the bill. However perhaps we can pick this up later. I'm currently undecided on the matter.

My comments are directed to posters such as checkmite above who is being willfully ignorant of the evidence that suggests that being in a prison where there is access to pornography will reduce your chance of being raped over being in a more puritanically run prison. Or Craig4 who seems to think that the opposite is true and that there's plenty of evidence (which he doesn't present) that porn leads to sexual violence.

I do realise that there are other strands to the wider argument. It's just that the link between pornography and sex crime is the part that grabbed my interest for now.

 

[BStrong]

Michigan Inmate Sues State Over Prison's Porn Ban

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/04/michigan-inmate-sues-state-over-prisons-porn-ban/#ixzz1REhzhNfj

I'm all for treating criminals like criminals and not exactly shedding a tear per se, but seems to me that the more they have access to this, the less likely prison gang bangs/etc they would generally tend to have. So if nothing else it seems this is a dumb move for practical reasons and not about whether they "deserve" it in some way.

Faulty logic, in that access to porn would deter either consensual behavior or criminal behavior.

If I was in charge of the DOC, they'd be fed, clothed, housed in as safe an environment as possible, receive medical treatment as required and other than that, not much. Porn, excercise, TV, adios.

 

[Checkmite]

Speaking of prisoners having a right to porn:

Rapist gets to watch child porn in jail

Why?

Alleged child molester Weldon Marc Gilbert of Washington state, accused of raping young boys, will watch hundreds of child pornography videos this week while he sits in jail –- the same police footage found in his home -- because he's acting as his own defense attorney.

A judge approved Gilbert's request based on a previous Washington Supreme Court ruling that allows a defense attorney to review evidence against a client.

But officials said this is the first time a defendant has been granted that kind of access.

Today Pierce County prosecutor Mark Lindquist told ABCNews.com he's gearing up for a fight.

"In my 16 years as a prosecutor, this is one of the most absurd and maddening results I've ever heard of, and this is the first time I'm aware of this happening in Pierce County," said Lindquist. "We don't have to turn over the guns used as evidence for a defendant … and it's absurd that we have to turn over the child porn as evidence."

In like manner, accused rapists and molesters acting as their own attorney are allowed to question their alleged victims directly in court, which often makes them (the alleged victims) unwilling to testify.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Short answer: No

Long answer: N.o.o..o..o..o.o.o

 

[Ausmerican]

No, prisoners should have no right to porn.....
(until such time as I am a prisoner and then, yes, damn right they should have porn!)