Hans-Peter Weingand:
Homosexualität und Kriminalstatistik in Österreich

Homosexuality and Criminal Statistics in Austria

English abstract

This article provides figures from the official criminal statistics of Austrian police and court authorities, from "grey literature" and from archives for the period from 1876 to 2002. This information is complemented with critically reviewed and newly assessed data from criminological research.

The data that are now available show that the rate of prosecution in Austria was extremely high by international standards, due to a relatively broad definition of 214 Invertito – Jahrbuch für die Geschichte der Homosexualitäten, Jg. 13, 2011 English Abstracts 215 "sodomy" in Austrian judicial history. In addition to daily record-keeping sources, this article is also based on sociostatistical data from the 1880s and the 1950s, concerning suspects in Vienna and convictions of men, women and juveniles in Austria. Additional material was provided by research carried out by Vienna criminologist Roland Graßberger, who evaluated criminal files on convictions of men in 1936 and women in the period from 1946 to 1954, including crime scene investigations, reasons for the legal proceedings (e.g. anonymous complaints) or judicially verified details (e.g. coercion, prostitution). The newly assessed data that are now available provide new insights into the persons who were taken to court due to homosexual conduct, shedding light on the social environment in which they lived.




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