Posner, Porn, and Prison

Decision here.  The Seventh Circuit, via Judge Posner, upholds warden's interception and confiscation of a number of pornographic magazines, but in extended dicta questions the wisdom of the prison's pornography ban.  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.  For a good overview of this tendency, I highly recommend Allegra McLeod's California Law Review article from last year.