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Violent games fighting crime?

No link between games and violence

A new report published in the International Journal of Liability and Scientific Enquiry suggests that a decline in violent crime can be linked with the release of violent videogames such as Grand Theft Auto IV.

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The new research implies that games might even be having a cathartic effect, or at the very least having no discernible impact at all.

"Violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s, while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use," he explained.

"For example, in 2005, there were 1,360,088 violent crimes reported in the USA compared with 1,423,677 the year before. With millions of sales of violent games, the world should be seeing an epidemic of violence, instead violence has declined."

What do you make of this?

1. Well, there obviously isn't a direct correlation so we can't really ever tell - there are some many other factors that may play a part.

   Many economists suggest that the legalisation of abortion in the US (Roe vs Wade, 1973) is the real cause of violent crime reducing a generation on.

   Jason Saturday, 17 May 2008, 09:14:12

2. Jason you are grossly misinformed. "Many economists," please show me the hard statistical evidence that even a small amount of economists equate legalization of abortion with lower crime rates. The fact is that a marginal, trivial amount of scholars equate abortion legalized with lower crime rates.

   Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and John Donohue of Yale wrote "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime" in 2001. This is basically considered the most up to date in and in depth study of abortion right and its relation to crime.

   But when the paper was peer reviewed there were found major statistical and methodological flaws in the paper. And any statistical significance disappeared when the data was readjusted to be per-capita and not overall, and showed the entire paper was flawed.

   ChronoTriggerSNES Sunday, 18 May 2008, 06:10:9