Less Crime in U.S. Thanks to Videogames

[BarberToad]

I have to disagree with the claim that the crime rate lowered because of video games. It might have some positive effect, but I don't think it's what made such a dramatic change.
There's actually an article on bbc news that gives out suggestions of why crime dropped in the US. From what I remembered:

-The election of President Obama might have inspired black youngsters to work harder. However the article itself admitted that one of the cities that had the biggest drop was also the one with the smallest black population in it, so that theory doesn't carry too much weight.

-The crime drop coincides with a drop in demand for crack, reducing the amount of gang-violence connected to it.

-Technology also has an effect, with computers that calculate the areas of a city that is most hit by crime, allowing the police force to know where to deploy officers.

-The availability of abortion made sure there were less one-parent families.

Video Games makes people dangerous if they spend their entire days, and I mean properly spending non-stop time on games. But that is the same thing with everything. I've once read that a japanese teenager killed his (or her, can't remember the details) parents for throwing away his (or her) mangas.

 

[eriktheguy]

@BarberToad
I think the ideas suggested in the paper were interesting. I remember a lot of people online justifying their DnD hobby to their parents saying 'at least when we're playing DnD we're not on the street doing drugs.' I hope the idea gets some study in the future from psychologists.

 

[CosmicCommander]

...Conservatives and hate-mongerers...

I dislike the bias against conservatives there. No offense, but that almost turned me off the article, seeing that I'm kind of conservative myself (usually, though, I call my beliefs "my beliefs" rather than conservative, since I wouldn't join a party that would have me as a member.) Being a conservative doesn't mean you hate videogames. Hell, I don't support any restrictions on them. (Ahem, I'll stop now, before this turns into a rant.)

Agreed.

OT: Greg, this article is not of the standard I'd expect from a website such as the Escapist- you've clearly let your political bias and what essentially amounts to a "games are good 500% of the time" fundamentalism seep through the many, many cracks here. I'd expect reporting and material here to be objective, and having thoroughly researched the story it cites- instead, you've essentially copy-pasted the title of another article and the report that it cites, and skimmed through the bulk of the latter.

I'd individually point out the flaws in this article, however, I can already see other people picking apart and criticising it- so I'm just going to merely say this: you do not have a fantastic track record, Greg. You often forsake objectivity and fact checking, and have in the past used your articles to forward your political agenda (see the aforementioned opening).

I personally think you're a swell guy, however, I think the Escapist community may collectively forsake reading, or even mock your articles in the future. Please, please, please improve your journalistic technique.

Nietzsche once said that the best way to destroy an argument was to badly defend it; you're a grade-a candidate for this offence.

 

[Pilkingtube]

I do find it funny that this was ignored by the US media, it was put out by the UK media instead, no? Just me?

EDIT: I'm also amazed by the number of people bashing poor Greg for linking the sort of games/gays/blacks/liberals/arabs/mexican bashing people to conservatives. I'm not trying to be disrespectful and I know that i'm not from the USA, but every time I see something about how bad any of the aforementioned groups are, it's almost always either a christian/republican/conservative group saying it.

 

[Bran1470]

and they say video games makes violent kids

 

[RelexCryo]

Also, letting Americans carry guns has consistently resulted in less crime than banning us from carrying them, and banning alchohol- which kills twice as many people as guns each year, and leads to a large amount of spouse and child abuse- actually made things worse in the United States by leading to the rise of power of the Mafia and criminal organizations in general. Legalizing alchohol actually made things better by taking their primary source of income away.

Isn't it amazing how many things, that seem like they should be banned, actually make things better when we are allowed to have them? Crazy world we live in.

 

[darkcommanderq]

Its about time.

 

[Alar]

Yes, it is ONLY VIDEO GAMES! Huzzah!

I'm guessing that the chances are video games have only had a moderate effect on this, or perhaps just minor.

There have to have been far more changes in society, education, and the general morality of the populace other than, "People are playing more video games."

 

[Nouw]

Well it ain't the reason but it's a nice link. This should hopefully stop people from linking video games to crime in a negative manner.

 

[O maestre]

sorry guys but to me this seems like just a faulty statement as the opposite, this seems to exclude any kind of social reforms or any kind of education that the kids may have gotten that has changed, maybe kids are just more informed than they were 20 years ago.

i think its a big step to say that a hobby has single handedly changed criminal behavior. to me it seems as unrealistic as postulating that a hobby can elicit violence and criminal behavior from sane individuals.

although the argument apparently makes sense that kids are to busy to murder because they are gaming, however does this mean that if there is a power outage there will be a million murders? it seems ludicrous, and naive to believe that are so impressionable that they are incapable of making their own decisions... hell our legal system would be useless if that was true.

 

[O maestre]

Also, letting Americans carry guns has consistently resulted in less crime than banning us from carrying them, and banning alchohol- which kills twice as many people as guns each year, and leads to a large amount of spouse and child abuse- actually made things worse in the United States by leading to the rise of power of the Mafia and criminal organizations in general. Legalizing alchohol actually made things better by taking their primary source of income away.

Isn't it amazing how many things, that seem like they should be banned, actually make things better when we are allowed to have them? Crazy world we live in.

i know this probably is not the forum to debate gun politics, but the US has one of the absolute highest rates of gun violence if not the highest... especially when compared to European countries. would't it make sense to ban them for two reasons.

1: making it as hard as possible for a criminal to get them, admittedly a weak reason i know

2: alot of gun violence is perpetrated in the heat of the moment, i.e a violent argument or some other conflict, where emotions are involved, and because of this people are capable of killing each other because of a heightened emotional state and the ease of getting a gun and shooting someone. making it harder for people to kille each other is a no brainer in my opinion, sure there will still be murder, but it will only be committed by people who have had to meticulously plan their crimes.

either a gun ban or raising the cost of bullets to the extreme, like 5000 dollars for one bullet.

 

[BrownGaijin]

im sorry but this just reminds me of this:

It's scary how much this reminds me of trying to convince people that the Earth is older than 6000 yrs.

I also believe it's over 6000 years old... and flat (I kid.)

OT: As much as I would like to break out the champagne and rolling out my vinyl records of Kool and the Gang, I also think it might be a bit too early to start celebrating. Hopefully this will give us some sort of leg to stand on as the video game industry tries to mature.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Huh. I came to this realization many years ago. Sad that so many "experts" can't. If people are inside playing games with their friends instead of out being vandals and worse, there you go.

Common sense is awesome.

 

[Treblaine]

Funny, my parents always told me to get outside and play on the streets like my friend.

My friend is now on probation and his teenage girlfriend is pregnant.

On the other hand I am now morbidly obese.

reasons why crime has lessened in the States from better police work to, sadly, the greater frequency of legal abortions for poor women.

Why is that sad? It's sad that a young woman are left forced to raise a child by themselves without the means to give them a proper upbringing.

Anyhoo, the conservatives are going to hate this. Crime is their favourite issue and there is evidence both abortion and video games have helped stemmed it? Not Nancy Reagan's "jsut say no" campaign? also:
-The Obama effect
-Lead in petrol (liberals fought much more for clean air acts)

EDIT: can conservatives take credit for crack supply fall with the republican led "war on drugs"?

On the other hand, liberals have a lot to be pissed about when they hear these measures apparently reduced crime rate:
-tougher sentences meaning more criminals were behind bars
-Baby Boomers (hippies) got too old to get into trouble
-More pro-active policing
-proliferation of camera phones and CCTV, (though maybe both liberals and conservatives are equally paranoid of Big Brother)

 

[RelexCryo]

Also, letting Americans carry guns has consistently resulted in less crime than banning us from carrying them, and banning alchohol- which kills twice as many people as guns each year, and leads to a large amount of spouse and child abuse- actually made things worse in the United States by leading to the rise of power of the Mafia and criminal organizations in general. Legalizing alchohol actually made things better by taking their primary source of income away.

Isn't it amazing how many things, that seem like they should be banned, actually make things better when we are allowed to have them? Crazy world we live in.

i know this probably is not the forum to debate gun politics, but the US has one of the absolute highest rates of gun violence if not the highest... especially when compared to European countries. would't it make sense to ban them for two reasons.

1: making it as hard as possible for a criminal to get them, admittedly a weak reason i know

2: alot of gun violence is perpetrated in the heat of the moment, i.e a violent argument or some other conflict, where emotions are involved, and because of this people are capable of killing each other because of a heightened emotional state and the ease of getting a gun and shooting someone. making it harder for people to kille each other is a no brainer in my opinion, sure there will still be murder, but it will only be committed by people who have had to meticulously plan their crimes.

either a gun ban or raising the cost of bullets to the extreme, like 5000 dollars for one bullet.

Swizterland has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. They hand out assault rifles to the vast majority of male citizens. America has high crime because of horrible living/social conditions, a survey conducted by the U.N. found that some parts of the U.S. are as horrible as a third world country.

Preventing citizens from carrying guns has consistently resulted in more crime in the U.S., while allowing us to carry guns has consistently resulted in less. Most people are not going to murder each other, period. The vast majority of gun murders in the United States is committed by career criminals, not normal people in a sudden fit of rage.

 

[Crimson_Dragoon]

Well, it's still implying causation from a correlation (a big no-no), but at least their correlation is correct (as opposed to all the people blaming the imaginary increase of crime on video games).

 

[O maestre]

Also, letting Americans carry guns has consistently resulted in less crime than banning us from carrying them, and banning alchohol- which kills twice as many people as guns each year, and leads to a large amount of spouse and child abuse- actually made things worse in the United States by leading to the rise of power of the Mafia and criminal organizations in general. Legalizing alchohol actually made things better by taking their primary source of income away.

Isn't it amazing how many things, that seem like they should be banned, actually make things better when we are allowed to have them? Crazy world we live in.

i know this probably is not the forum to debate gun politics, but the US has one of the absolute highest rates of gun violence if not the highest... especially when compared to European countries. would't it make sense to ban them for two reasons.

1: making it as hard as possible for a criminal to get them, admittedly a weak reason i know

2: alot of gun violence is perpetrated in the heat of the moment, i.e a violent argument or some other conflict, where emotions are involved, and because of this people are capable of killing each other because of a heightened emotional state and the ease of getting a gun and shooting someone. making it harder for people to kille each other is a no brainer in my opinion, sure there will still be murder, but it will only be committed by people who have had to meticulously plan their crimes.

either a gun ban or raising the cost of bullets to the extreme, like 5000 dollars for one bullet.

Swizterland has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. They hand out assault rifles to the vast majority of male citizens. America has high crime because of horrible living/social conditions, a survey conducted by the U.N. found that some parts of the U.S. are as horrible as a third world country.

Preventing citizens from carrying guns has consistently resulted in more crime in the U.S., while allowing us to carry guns has consistently resulted in less. Most people are not going to murder each other, period. The vast majority of gun murders in the United States is committed by career criminals, not normal people in a sudden fit of rage.

sigh we shouldn't even try to debate this we are not going to see eye to eye no matter how many facts we sling at each other...

in regards to switzerland check out their gun politics. the swiss are pretty much unique within europe, their internal politics have not changed in roughly 150 years they still uphold a citzens militia rather than a professional military... this also means that the populace is constantly in "training", the weapons they are given are not simple consumer items but rather objects that reflect their duty to their society, and the martial culture that has existed for centuries, in other words they are given the weapons for the specific purpose of being able mobelize and defend their country at a moments notice, their education of firearms is institutionalized. they grow up around guns in a completely different way. all this can hardly be compared to american gun culture, or any other country's firearm politics.

also the countries attitude to the rest of europe is somewhat participatory but in no way bound by any formal commitment. when i was thinking of europe i was thinking about the EU im sorry for not being clearer.

you are absolutely right that it is a question of societal structure, it is for that very reason that i believe guns can only exacerbate these issues, especially when weapons are not given proper reverence. gun ownership should be followed up with education and a license, to at least instil some sense of responsibility, kind of like a drivers license. gun violence is almost always fatal, and if not then it is crippling, and it is incredibly easy to perpetrate.

people kill people but guns make it way too easy...

 

[Ilke]

Coincidence does not imply causation, people. This is the same phrase ignored by the regular press to demonize gaming, only this time the crime rate is down.

There are other correlating data suggesting why crime in the US actually fell, for example the legalization of abortion, the Three Strikes Law, reduced exposure to lead (now that's just getting silly)... but the phrase still applies, again.

This shows how the gaming press is no different than the regular one with the methods used. The study shown here (and the way it's misquoted) has no more credibility than another suggesting video games cause psychological disorders.

RELEVANT [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/8903-Critical-Miss-Gamer-Science]

Also, ninja'd hard D:

 

[Tdc2182]

This seems more coincidental to me than fact. But then again, compared to the complete bullshit that these people bring up against Video games it's pretty solid.

I think it's mostly just changing times. Fads change. Murder becomes dull.