Sunday, February 12, 2006

Video games reduce youth crime in Edinburgh

The Moredun area of Edinburgh has high youth crime rates. Motor vehicle related thefts are about double than the average of rest of Scotland.

The police in Moredun is taking a very unorthodox approach to reducing youth crime rates in the area. They are holding weekly video game tournaments between the local Police Youth Action Team and a group of about 30 local youths who are known regular offenders.

The results have been phenomenal so far. Before the tournaments began, the police received 92 complaints of youth crime per month. They now receive 53 complaints on average every month.

The Edinburgh police is considering rolling out similar tournaments across the rest of Edinburgh.

Video games bring families together

A recent study by The Entertainment Software Association found out that 35% of all parents play video games, and 80% of the game playing parents play video games with their children. Two thirds said playing video games with their children has brought the family closer together.

85% of the game playing parents also said the parents, not the Government or retailers, should take the responsibility of monitoring their kids' exposure to video games. 60% of the parents said it's not the Governments job to regulate games sales in order to "protect" children from violent or sexually suggestive video games. Given that 73% of these parents are regular voters, the various video game related legislative efforts might very well do more harm than good to the re-election efforts of politicians trying to score "easy" points with their constituents with video game related bills.