He looked at how the number of child abuse case reports changed in the society. One thing he never found was an increase in sex crimes against children—if anything, they went down.
Assertion: If cp possession is suddenly made legal, there will be less clues of abuse to follow because less legal searches can be made. The crimes might even increase, but less will be reported.
In the countries in question, during the period in question, there is little reason to think that reporting rates went down; indeed, there were quite a lot of efforts at increasing awareness and encouraging reporting which seem to be widely regarded to have had some success. I expect that is why Diamond’s critics have generally not tried to use this approach to criticize his results; certainly I am not aware of any evidence in favor of this explanation.
Assertion: If cp possession is suddenly made legal, there will be less clues of abuse to follow because less legal searches can be made. The crimes might even increase, but less will be reported.
In the countries in question, during the period in question, there is little reason to think that reporting rates went down; indeed, there were quite a lot of efforts at increasing awareness and encouraging reporting which seem to be widely regarded to have had some success. I expect that is why Diamond’s critics have generally not tried to use this approach to criticize his results; certainly I am not aware of any evidence in favor of this explanation.