Police officials in Cache County are implementing a new program that will begin to document pornography when it is found at crime scenes.

The county is conducting the study to determine if there is a relationship between pornography and crimes.

Lt. Matt Bilodeau said the sheriff's office keeps statistics on all crimes but it has never documented statistics on pornography.

"A lot of deputies have noticed that [pornography] seems to be prevalent in the cases they are investigating," Bilodeau said. "Especially in cases with the sexual abuse of a child."

Bilodeau said he has seen an increase in pornography's association with crime just since he's been working at the sheriff's department.

Deputies have been in the process of developing and outlining criteria for weeks, determining what ways would be most effective in the collection of the pornography data.

"Once we build the criteria were going to have it checked it out by the Cache County's Attorney's Office and the Utah Attorney General's Office." Bioldeau said. "Then we'll use that criteria to track the pornography."

The Cache County's Sheriff's Office said that it is important that the public knows the sheriff's office is not doing anything that will violate any first amendment rights.

"We're not doing any profiling, we're simply keeping statistics on the relationship of pornography with crime," Bilodeau said.

According to the Utah Attorney Generals Web site, it is not illegal in Utah for an adult to own or possess adult pornography. It only becomes illegal when the pornography is distributed or involves children.

Pornography and obscenity are defined through a three-part test that was outlined by the Supreme Court in 1973. The test involves questions that would determine if an average citizen would find the alleged obscene or pornographic material sexually explicit and lacking in any educational value.

The sheriff's office is taking into account the definition of pornography in its development of collection criteria.

Once the data is collected, Bilodeau said that the information will help the sheriff's department provide statistics to other organizations.

For instance, an organization may look at the statistics to see if there is anything that can be done for a perpetrator to help rehabilitate them. Also, statistics will be available to law makers so that they can protect those people who want to be protected.

"We're not sure what we are going to achieve," Bioldeau said. "It's going to take a year or two before we really have some numbers to look at."



Copyright Brigham Young University 19 Oct 2004