Obscenity and pornography have long been notoriously difficult to define, but legal scholars such as the British authority William Blackstone (1723–80) have tried to do so. In his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–70), Blackstone denounces “the sale of immoral pictures and prints” as a “grossly scandalous and public indecency,” noting that “the punishment ‘at common law’ is by fine and imprisonment.” Or, as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart (1915–85) famously retorted in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), “I know it when I see it,” adding that the motion picture involved in this case “is not that.” A billboard in Sioux Falls, S.D., paid for and sponsored by Citizens for Community Values, a Cinncinnati-based group, illustrates the group's attempt to pressure LodgeNet Entertainment Corporation to stop offering pornographic titles through its in-room pay-perview service. [Source: The U.S. Constitution A to Z; Obscenity]
crimes in America
legal topics
psychology of criminal behavior
constitutional issues
cross-cultural perspectives
nonviolent crimes
social issues
community, culture, and change
crime and deviance
media effects
obscenity
concepts