Why Are Community Standards Important?

In the broadest sense, community standards refer to what a group of people would consider as generally acceptable in terms of behavior. These standards encapsulate what a community values and how it regulates inclusion within itself.

In most cases, most community standards are even unspoken or unenumerated. Most members of a community simply know when some form of behavior falls outside the realm of what is accepted by the majority.

In legal situations, community standards are brought into bear when judging what is acceptable, particularly in the area of obscenity and pornography. Community standards become an important way of measuring what is “art” or what might fall under free speech, or what is illegal behavior.

Obscenity Community Standards: Miller Test

The Miller Test, which was drawn from the U.S. Supreme Court Case Miller v. California (1973) sets up what is known as a “Three Prong Obscenity Test.” With the Miller Test, the Court set up a method by which speech, art, and other forms of expression are to be deemed obscene, and therefore not subject to First Amendment allowance. The Miller Test involves community standards and helps to illustrate why community standards are important.

The Miller Test

This is the specific Miller Test:

Would “the average person, applying contemporary community standards,” find the work when examined in total appealing to a “prurient interest,”
Does the work show sexual acts in a clearly offensive way, as governed by various legal standards?
Does the work that is being examined, again in total, not offer serious value as literature, in politics, science, or art?

If the answer to each of these questions is yes, then the work is deemed obscene. Each standard must be met for the piece in question to be illegal.

Community Versus National Value

Under the Miller test, the first two prongs are held against community standards, and the last prong is laid out against the U.S. standards in totality. In other words, what would a reasonable person consider acceptable in that particular community, versus the U.S.? If a piece of art or literature is deemed obscene by a certain community, as in a religious or political grouping, it may still be deemed acceptable if it is found to have national value in some area.

Average Versus a Sensitive Person

The Miller Test also designates the average person, not the most sensitive person in a community, as the one by whom the test must be measured. What a sensitive person may deem offensive may not offend the average person in a given community.

Importance of the Miller Test

This is an important facet of measuring obscenity by community standards, and this test shows just one example of why community standards are important and of how these standards are used to govern behavior.