RELATIVE TO THE INVESTIGATION OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN THE UNITED STATES 71890 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1956 CONTENTS Page Subject of the subcommittee's inquiry- Assistance in the investigation___ II. Scope of the subcommittee's inquiry- Questionnaire used during the investigation. III. Impact of pornography on youth. Testimony of Dr. George W. Henry.. Testimony of Dr. Benjamin Karpman.. Pornography reaches juveniles.. Testimony of Mr. William Deerson_. Opinions of chiefs of police on laws against pornography. Some court decisions defining obscene matter. V. The United States Postoffice Department.. Testimony of Mr. William C. O'Brien. Testimony of Mr. Harry J. Simon... Testimony of Mr. Ralph E. Stapenhorst VI. Importation of pornography and the United States Bureau of Cus- Ross-Tager Operation, Roy J. Ross and Louis and Mary Tager. OBSCENE AND PORNOGRAPHIC LITERATURE AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY RELATIVE TO THE INVESTIGATION OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN THE UNITED STATES Mr. KEFAUVER, from the Subcommittee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency in the United States of the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following INTERIM REPORT [Pursuant to S. Res. 62, and S. Res. 173, 84th Cong.] I. INTRODUCTION The Subcommittee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency, pursuant to authorization in Senate Resolution 62, 84th Congress, 1st session, has been making a "full and complete study of juvenile delinquency in the United States," including its "extent and character" and "its causes and contributing factors." As a part of this study and investigation the interstate traffic in pornographic materials and its availability and effect on juveniles and youth was a matter of great concern to the subcommittee. The subcommittee's investigation of crime and horror comic books conducted earlier and duly reported to the Senate can be said to have paved the way for our intensive inquiry into the origin and circulation of pornography, and its deleterious impact on the thinking and habits of juveniles. The severity of the problem manifested itself when we found many of the comic books themselves pointed toward the portrayal of the suggestive, the lewd, and the obscene. Surveys of stores and newsstands in all parts of the Nation established that almost without exception the comic books were displayed indiscriminately in the midst of magazines notorious for their emphasis on sex, nude torsos and exaggerated accentuation of some physical characteristics of male and female alike. We have a strong feeling that this step-by-step development of adolescent curiosity is more design than coincidence. It unquestion |