Violent Crime, Video Games, Legislation and Litigation

Nov 17, 02:26 AM by Jonathan Howard

“There is a growing body of evidence that points to a link between violent videos and aggressive behavior in children.”
Senator Joseph Lieberman link

There have indeed been studies that link aggression in children and violence in their media. The major problem with all these studies is their lack of real world considerations.

First, let me defend this point. Dr. Craig Anderson, in a paper written for the American Psychological Association, manages to do a decent job of defending the validity of the studies shown, but there are a few problems inherent in his defense. (link)



Source Material

The first glaring problem, in my opinion, is his bibliography. He cites a total of ten sources for his paper. Eight of those ten sources are either authored or co-authored by Dr. Anderson. I find it suspect that he referenced his own work to support his conclusions. It’s far too similar to bloggers around the net references other blogs to prove their points.



Myth 11

Myth 11. If violent video games cause increases in aggression, violent crime rates in the U.S. would be increasing instead of decreasing.
Facts: Three assumptions must all be true for this myth to be valid: (a) exposure to violent media (including video games) is increasing; (b) youth violent crime rates are decreasing; (c) video game violence is the only (or the primary) factor contributing to societal violence. The first assumption is probably true. The second is not true, as reported by the 2001 Report of the Surgeon General on Youth Violence (Figure 2-7, p. 25). The third is clearly untrue. Media violence is only one of many factors that contribute to societal violence and is certainly not the most important one. Media violence researchers have repeatedly noted this.
Dr. Craig A. Anderson

This is really the crux of where I disagree with Dr. Anderson. I agree with him on his first point above. The game sales growth from 1996 to 2005 was 308.4%, with 74.1 million games sold in 1996 and 228.5 million sold in 2005. So clearly, at least in the video game department, there is a much larger opportunity for children to access violent media.

He then claims the second assumption is not true according to a 2001 report made by the Surgeon General. I’m not sure where the Surgeon General gets his numbers, but according the the FBI, the number of people under 18 charged with violent crimes dropped by 25.2% between 1996 and 2005. There has clearly been some disconnect between the Surgeon General and the FBI, but I have a tendency to believe those actually doing the investigations over those issuing reports.

His third point is wrong. Or rather, his myth was worded badly. His myth should read:
bq. If violent video games cause significant increases in aggression, violent crime rates in the U.S. would be increasing instead of decreasing.
Violent crime among those under 18 have been dropping steadily for the past 10 years, while video game sales have been increasing steadily over the same period of time. While video games may not be the primary factor in determining violent crime, if they were a significant factor there would be a noticeable affect on the numbers.

Another psychologist even disagrees with his assessment of this myth.

“The research on video games and crime is compelling to read, but it just doesn’t hold up. Kids have been getting less violent since those games came out. That includes gun violence and every other sort of violence that might be inspired by a video game.”
Helen Smith, forensic psychologist, youth violence specialist via the ESA link



The “Myth” He Misses

What he has utterly failed to mention is another one of those nasty real world factors about significance.

Exactly.

In 2005 there were 228,500,000 video and computer games sold. During that same time there were 372,962 violent criminals. That means that if we were to assume that every single violent crime was caused by a video game, only 0.16% of games would cause violent crimes. The number of shooters, the genre most often blamed for violent crimes, sold in 2005 was 26,391,750. So if every single shooter had a chance of causing someone to become a violent criminal, that chance would 1.41%.

I haven’t been able to find exact numbers on the total number of gamers in the United States, so my research in this area isn’t complete. Despite that, there is no recognizable pattern of increased violent media exposure compared to violent crime. In fact, it’s much more likely, again going by real world data, that exposure to violent media, especially interacting with violent games, acts as a sort of release of tension.



The Political Game

So the legislation surrounding video and computer games has been a very mixed bag. Gamepolitics gives a far better review in a simple map format than I can do, but the highlights are 15 bills either died before passing or died on the judges bench, 3 are currently in court, 5 are currently in effect and 5 are federal, rather than state.

Now, as I said, they’re a mixed bag. One of the bills in effect requires retailers to post what the ESRB ratings mean. One of the federal bills is just a funding proposal for a study. Too many of these bills seem like a waste of time and money, the only purpose of them being to garner political capital.



Abundant Lawsuits

If there’s one truism in the American justice system it’s that lawsuits follow the money. With $7,000,000,000 in sales in 2005 alone, it’s no wonder the lawsuits cover the video and computer game industry like a foul stench.

The first widely publicized lawsuit pinning the blame of violence on a video game was after the shootings at Columbine high school in Littleton, Colorado. According to 1up.com
bq. It was id Software and 25 other game companies — including Sega and family-friendly Nintendo — that the parents of the Columbine victims eventually chose to take to court. The group claimed that investigations into the case revealed that their children’s killers had been inspired by violent games; if they had never played those games, the shooting wouldn’t have happened. Not much came of the suit.

Suits have been coming at a steady pace, most meeting with similar success. One of the few major cases with an actual affect can in the summer of 2005 when it was discovered that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas had a sex based mini game locked away. All the evidence points to this being a dropped feature that wasn’t completely removed, seeing as how it took a mod to access it.

Still, they were hit with a large fine and their game was re-rated until they re-released it with the offending code removed. The mini game itself wasn’t even worth talking about. It showed two clothed people simulating sex acts that the player had very limited control over. The amount of time taken up in our court system over something like that is really telling.



It doesn’t matter if it’s jazz music, swing dancing, comic books, rock and roll, rap or video games. As every generation grows old, they seem to have this need for a scapegoat to absolve themselves of blame when the younger generation gets into the same trouble they got into as children.



Sources

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  1. Thank’s dude, you helped me with my school speech project.

    — Zupwat · Nov 30, 09:50 AM · #

  2. Glad I could help!

    — Jonathan Howard · Nov 30, 12:25 PM · #

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