No way! Gaming to thank for falling US crime rate!

Paul Sinclair • Jun 23, 2011 • Comments ()

Shock, horror! Video gaming actually helping to reduce the US crime rate! No way I hear you say! Gaming so far has carried the can for many aspects of anti-social behaviour including violent crime, but not according to the Centre for European Economic Research, who have "...rejected the widely-held perception that games potentially make consumers more violent, and instead insisted that the pastime is actually helping to keep them occupied and off the streets."

Summarised by the BBC, "...the various hypotheses put forward to explain the trend include better police work, decreased demand for crack cocaine, the "Obama effect" and, perhaps surprisingly, the increased popularity of gaming."

If you've just completed Infamous and got time on your hands whilst you wait for Gears of War 3 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution to arrive, then you can read the full report here. But here's a snapshot for you:

Titled Understanding the Effects of Violent Videogames on Violent Crime, it claims that an increased volume of violent game sales over the given test period has corresponded with a decrease in criminal incidents reported to law enforcement officers.

The report's basic argument is that any anti-social tendencies that games might inspire in users is offset by the time it takes to play them.

"We argue that since laboratory experiments have not examined the time use effects of videogames, which incapacitate violent activity by drawing individual gamers into extended gameplay, laboratory studies may be poor predictors of the net effects of violent videogames in society," wrote the report's author, economist Michael Ward.

[Source: BBC, via CliffyB, EuroGamer]