Sex Crimes in the Fifties

Abstract

Sex Crimes in the Fifties. BY LISA FEAT HERSTONE AND AMANDA KALADELFOS. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Publishing, 2016. Pp. 256. $61.99 (cloth); $46.99 (paper). The book focuses mainly on the hitherto unstudied collection of hundreds of transcriptions of sexual criminal trials (291) and sentencing hearings (183), which provide verbatim records from the criminal courts in New South Wales (NSW) between January 1950 and December 1959. We learn much about police, legal, medical, and popular attitudes toward sex from the authors' examination of these sources, and the book lays solid foundations for future analyses of sexuality in post-World War II Australia.