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comment by GorGorGorillaNeck
GorGorGorillaNeck  ·  3602 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What do you think of video games?

    I'd bet that crime rates are lower because people are home playing video games instead of doing violent and unethical things in real life.

I agree and we are not alone in that thought.





b_b  ·  3602 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That's a really interesting article, but what does it have to do with video games?

GorGorGorillaNeck  ·  3602 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I should have cited this directly, sorry about that. It's a bit of a chunky article to throw out there and be all "Yep!"

    The LAPD also began to make use of a tool that had previously been used sparingly: the gang injunction, essentially a ban on gang members hanging out together in public. The gang injunction spent much of the 1990s in court before being narrowly ruled constitutional, but law enforcement valued it. Today, Los Angeles alone has at least 44 injunctions against 72 street gangs. Gang members seen on the street together can be jailed on misdemeanor charges. Other towns and counties followed LAPD’s lead.

    All this had a major effect: It drove gang members indoors. Drug dealing continued, and so did other forms of crime, including identity theft. Gang members became more adept at using the Internet to promote their gangs and belittle rivals. But boasting and threatening online doesn’t require the commitment or violence of classic L.A. street gang-banging, nor does it blight a neighborhood. “When you don’t have kids hanging out on the street,” says George Tita, the UC Irvine criminologist, “there’s no one to shoot or do the shooting.”

It's doesn't explicitly mention video games but it does speak to the larger point of people not being on the street has been one of the many factors that have lead to a drop in violent crime. This of course was precipitated by the gang injunction forcing them to clear out of sight.

cgod  ·  3602 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Haha, my thought exactly.

You should make that piece it's own post.