Meese Report
Encyclopedia
The final report
Report
A report is a textual work made with the specific intention of relaying information or recounting certain events in a widely presentable form....

 of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography (usually referred to as (the) Meese Report, for U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese
Edwin Meese
Edwin "Ed" Meese, III is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration , the Reagan Presidential Transition Team , and the Reagan White House , eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of...

) is the result of a comprehensive investigation into pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...

 ordered by U.S. President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

. It was published in July 1986 and contains 1,960 pages.

The following people comprised the commission (nicknamed The Meese Commission):
  • Henry E. Hudson
    Henry E. Hudson
    Henry E. Hudson is a United States federal judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.-Early life and education:...

    , chairman.
  • Diane D. Cusack
  • Park Elliott Dietz
    Park Dietz
    Park Elliott Dietz is a forensic psychiatrist and criminologist who was educated at Cornell University and Johns Hopkins University...

  • James Dobson
    James Dobson
    James Clayton "Jim" Dobson, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder in 1977 of Focus on the Family , which he led until 2003. In the 1980s he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesman for conservative social positions in American public life...

  • Father Bruce Ritter
    Bruce Ritter
    Rev. Bruce Ritter was a Roman Catholic priest and one-time Franciscan friar who founded the charity Covenant House in 1972 for homeless teenagers, from which he was forced to resign in 1990 after accusations that he had engaged in financial improprieties and had engaged in sexual relations with...

  • Frederick Schauer
  • Deanne Tilton-Durfee
  • Judith Becker
  • Ellen Levine


The report is divided into five parts and 35 chapters and details most aspects of the pornography industry, including the history of pornography and the extent of First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...

 protections. The report also documents what the committee found to be the harmful effects of pornography
Pornography addiction
Pornography addiction, or more broadly overuse of pornography, is excessive pornography use that interferes with daily life.There is no diagnosis of pornography addiction in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , and as with the broader proposed diagnosis of sexual...

 and connections between pornographers and organized crime
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

. The report was criticized by many inside and outside the pornography industry, calling it biased, incredible, and inaccurate
Accuracy and precision
In the fields of science, engineering, industry and statistics, the accuracy of a measurement system is the degree of closeness of measurements of a quantity to that quantity's actual value. The precision of a measurement system, also called reproducibility or repeatability, is the degree to which...

.

The "Meese Report" was preceded by the report of presidents Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

's and Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, which was published in 1970 and recommended loosening the legal restrictions on pornography.

See also

  • President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography
  • Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship
    Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship
    The Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship, better known as the Williams Committee, was a 1970s British Home Office committee chaired by Professor Bernard Williams...


External links

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