Crime down due to increase in film, TV, video game violence

by David Safier

What? You have problems with my headline? You doubt that crime is down this year — and it is, according to an FBI report — as a result of people being exposed to increasingly violent images in film, TV and video games?

Look, I'm just trying to be consistent here.

Every time crime goes up, you hear cries about the country going to hell in a hand basket because people are being bombarded by images of violence in the media. The accusation is greeted by nodding heads and clucking tongues. "Yes, isn't it awful?" the wise voices say. "If only we could get rid of all this gratuitous violence, the crime rate would go down."

OK, so these cultural moralists insist there's a direct correlation between increased violence in the media and increased crime on the streets, right? And they use every crime spike to hammer their point home?

So how do they explain this? So far as I can tell, violence in the media is on the rise, especially violent video games, which are a whole new kind of interactive media where players actually create the mayhem themselves rather than just watching it. Crime should be going through the roof. So why is crime down? You can't correlate media violence and crime only when it's convenient to your moralizing — not if you care about logic or consistency, anyway.

So let me offer an alternate hypothesis. Maybe we didn't have enough violence in the media before. There was enough to stimulate the urge to act violently, but not enough to create a catharsis which would purge people of their desire to be violent. We've finally got the mix right. And maybe if we crank the media violence up another notch, crime will go down even more.

If you don't like my hypothesis, then let me offer a suggestion. We stop accepting ridiculous, straight-line correlations when we're discussing human behavior and realize the world is a complex place that defies simple answers.