Police and the Invisibility of the Violent Crimes of the Porn Industry in the Current Knowledge of Crime and Insecurities

• In Event: Constructing Crime: Identity, Legitimacy, and Authenticity

Abstract

Police in the U.S. operate within a hypermasculinzed police culture that condones violent crimes committed by the mainstream heterosexual porn industry and fail to recognize victims of sexual and physical violence. The current “knowledge of crimes and insecurities” is actively constructed by police organizations and is intertwined with masculinist crime-control ideologies that largely focus on aggressive crime-control of street crimes. Public policing as an institution actively constructs current societal insecurities and the ‘need’ for policing in its present form. The nature of these current policing systems and their police identities operate to justify current police priorities and in the process condone the violent crimes committed by the porn industry. Victims of sexual and physical assault in pornography are excluded from the police crime narrative as they are largely not viewed to be “legitimate victims”. In a period with unprecedented access to and availability of violence against women in heterosexual pornography and with the commodification of outright sexual brutality, the role of the police becomes particularly relevant. This paper will provide a critical analysis of police investigations in adult pornography and their roles in rendering the crimes of the porn industry “invisible” and ultimately contributing to the mainstreaming of violence against women.

Author

• Marilyn Corsianos, Eastern Michigan University