A Seventh Circuit panel upholds a warden's interception and confiscation of a number of pornographic magazines, but in extended dicta questions the wisdom of the prison's pornography ban on policy grounds (click here for the opinion; Judge Posner wrote for the court).
What drew my attention to this decision, however, is Andrew Gilden's (Stanford) commentary on how Judge Posner incorporates social science into the judicial decision. "Judge Posner points to a number of studies showing little (or even inverse) correlation between violence and pornography in prison. Now, I have no idea what the prison's past experiences with inmate pornography have been, but I do think the nudge towards empirics and social science is an improvement over the common sense fears that tend to drive regulation of sexual content."
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