Laws against sex and vice resurged strongly in late nineteenth-century America

Evidence

The Indiana statutes, as we saw, contained many provisions on morality and vice. We do not know much about how and when these laws were enforced. Some may have been dead letters. What is striking, though, is the strong resurgence of laws about sex, morality, and so-​called victimless crimes in the late nineteenth century. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3323

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Nineteenth-century vice laws against adultery went largely unenforced in practice — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 817; A late-nineteenth-century crusade criminalized victimless vices like obscenity and gambling — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 818; Late-twentieth-century law decriminalized what Victorian vice laws had criminalized — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4293 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Late-twentieth-century law decriminalized what Victorian vice laws had criminalized #responds-to (0.95) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4293
• Legal change on sexual morality tracks shifts in the larger society #expands (0.80) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1436
• Criminal sodomy prohibitions have ancient roots in American legal history. #qualifies (0.80) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 519
• The laws that invented race also created a regime policing Black women’s sexuality #complicates (0.75) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 204