Slashdot Mirror
California City Issues Internet Cafe Moratorium
DarkZero writes: "The Sacramento Bee is reporting that the City Council of Garden Grove, California has issued a 45 day moratium on internet cafes following a fatal stabbing and several other crimes, with the justification that internet cafes are "improperly supervised environments" that very large groups of minors frequent daily (mostly to play games), and that a lot of gang violence has cropped up because of this. Another new restriction is that minors may not stay in any internet cafe past 8PM on a school night, though it isn't clear whether or not that restriction will be lifted after the 45 day period." The New York Times has a similarly breathless story, emphasizing the violence of games played at such cafes.
Doesn't minors have civil rights?
Garden Grove is not an area I would want to hang out in after dark. The fact that the kids are playing games probably has nothing to do with the violence. If you simply have a bunch of hoodlums haning out, there will be a problem, no matter what it is that they are doing.
On the other hand, if you want to go to Garden Grove during the day, you can get some tasty Chinese or Vietnamese food. It is actually a cool place to go shopping at as long as you are in a well lighted area.
I wonder why a newspaper in Sacramento is running a story about it....I doubt they could accuratly report about any happenings in GG since Sacramento has to be about 700+ miles away.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
This is just my crazy idea...
We had the same problem in our local library, so the library decided that kids, especially teens, couldn't use the computers. So a bunch of us professional programmers and open source advocates got the library to open the computers up again as long as we supervised. What I found was that kids are just looking for two things - entertainment and knowledge. While we didn't let them play games, we taught them that this is a profession with a future and that not everyone uses their power for evil. A few of them got the local high school to start teaching computer science classes.
I really think the tech community needs to make the effort and reach out when necessary. Not only do we keep kids out of trouble, but we might even inspire the next Linus.
Things never really change. I remember the same arguments about video arcardes when I was a kid. The thing is anywhere teens hang around* will attract negative parental/adult attention since the teens will experiment with alot of things that make adults uncomfortable. Gangs, sex, drugs, violence (etc) have always been around and probably always will.
* excluding certain pre-approved places where adults are welcome (eg. sports games) or that seems innocuous (eg. school or music classes)
"I wish just for once.. i could read about a problem with kids and hear about a solution instead of some rediculous feel good legislation"
:).
Frankly this is probably not a big epidemic or 'problem' at all -- the media just loves to focus on it and the politicans love to have 'issues' that they can fight.
The relevance of this in light of the 'big picture' is small. There will always be violent kids just as there will always be violent adults. Just because one group of violent kids commits a crime does not mean that all kids are violent and thus must be regulated by the state (think about it, it is commonly *percieved* that 'adult' violent crime is committed at night time. If the government responded by putting a curfew on the nation we would be pissed).
Ask some of your friends these questions and I'm sure you'll be surpirsed at just how warped the public's sense of relevance is:
1) Do more people die from suicide in the US or murder?
The answer is by FAR suicide, but no one cares, no news agency 'reports' it and no politician poses a 'war on suicide'
2) Do more people die from airplane crashes or car accidents?
Obviosly car accidents, but SO many people mess even this simple fact up.
3) Is there more violent crime now (per capita) then in the 1950s?
Most people would say yes, however there is strong evidence that there is in fact much less *violent* crime today, however there was less *reported* crime in the past -- a big difference.
With these in mind, you can see how the public's perception of 'the issues' around violence and death is completely warped. This 'internet cafe' thingy is probably somthing completely blown out of proportion, a great political biline, an exciting news story but nothing more then the public using kids, the internet and violent games as a scapegoat for their ignorance and mis-understanding.
As for the line "parent's just don't understand" that is the truth in this case. They don't understand how the world has changed since they were kids and most of all they don't understand technology (aka internet). Their reactionary tendancies in light of this change makes thim spit out this legislative garbage.
I'm seeing alot of people ranting and making sarcastic remarks about video game violence. While a game of counterstrike isn't likely to cause violence on it's own, the numbers of hot-headed individuals does.
Please note that this is a 45 day moratorium on these cafes. Notice how there is a duration as opposed to a flat out standing law. It's a trial period folks. Several violent acts and someone gets stabbed in the head with a screwdriver, you'd expect at least something to happen. There really isn't alot of regulation for these shops either. One local shop has people in there for so long, they lock it up at night and come back in the morning to let the addicted out to go to school.
Garden Grove is an nice place if you're looking for food and such, but it's most definitely not a place to chill at. There's absolutely nothing in the immediate area in terms of entertainment; you'd have to go to Irvine for some entertainment, and to be honest, Irvine blows.
And if you people actually read the damm article (Sacramento Bee), you'll read their major gripe:
"...these establishments cater to minors in a manner such that large numbers of minors, and others, are present in an improperly supervised environment. It has been established that gang members frequent such establishments"
That says alot, don't it?
The officials don't even say anything about the video-game violence. Their primary concern is the volume of unsupervised individuals.
As much as slashdot users are calling this a knee-jerk reaction, I'm seeing alot of typical knee-jerk slashdot reactions.
The 45-day period gives the city attorney and city manager time to review case precedent and figure out what they can do. And what they may do (to show they're Doing Something) could include:
- Impact fees for the business owner (it takes more cops to look after gaming-crazed kids!). These might be tied to the business-licensing process.
- Mandatory content filtering ("Didja know they can get pr0n on them there Ninternet screens?!?")
- Zoning changes (no Net cafes near schools, etc.)
This might be about genuine concern, but the PR guy in me says this is more about making a splash in the paper and taking a moment in the resulting flap to figure out a way to squeeze more municipal revenue from a small business."It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
With todays society it figures the disease would be considered the place and not the people, and the cure is to ban the people from the place.... I'd rather a kid at a computer keeping network security professionals on their toes than out on the streets killing. There are already laws against guns, drugs, and violence. It sounds to me like the police need to do a better job of making sure people in places like these are following them rather than restrict their hours, I'm sure the business owners can't be too happy.
Maybe I'm just biased, after all, sitting at a keyboard is likely the only reason I've never been arrested, or in jail, or on drugs.... I say give the kids access to computers throughout the night, just make sure the places are adiquetly policed...
I disagree that this has nothing to do with "the internet, geeks, or nerds". Schools and shopping malls cause similar congregation of kids and the "corresponding" violence, and I have yet to see a city council place a moratorium on new shopping malls for this reason.
Furthermore, to suggest that these events do not raise the specter of shutdowns and bans is short sighted at best. This is how such bans begin.
I think this situation is expemplary of the cultural divide of fear between people who understand technology and those who do not. As people like Kevin Mitnick or David McOwen well understand, the fear of the latter is outrageous, pervasive, and incredibly destructive. It is a social phenomenon that borders on racism in its capacity for evil. Indeed, the greatest challenge I face as a technology professional is managing this fear on the part of my clients and managers which sometimes expresses itself as outright hatred toward me!
We have a responsibility to stand up when this fear manifests itself in public policy. It is, in my opinion, nothing less than a matter of civil rights.
This just gives the kids a few extra hours to get even more bored--just think of all the stabbings they could accomplish with all this new free time.
/. crowd modding you to Score 5, Insightful really gives me the creeps.
If I read correctly through your sarcasms, you basically say 2 things here:
1. Kids attending these cafes are actually would-be criminals. According to the article, investigators don't even assume that; they seem to think that the cafe was merely a battleground. i.e. gangs just met there to fight, they were not usual customers of the cafe.
2. You then fall into the usual (yet unacceptable) ultimatum/blackmail to society/gov : "give us what we want or we use violence."
I can live with the fact that you posted your comment without thinking of its implications, but the
other than The Mall, which is protected by tradition and capitalism
Funny you should say that. One of the malls in my home town was always plagued by gang violence. There were no extra laws passed to get the kids out of there. The mall was never closed because of the violence. People were so afraid to go there that most of the employees quit and shoppers went elsewhere. The mall closed only to lack of funds.
I agree with you. Had an arcade place or one of the so called "coffee bars" had the same amount of problems the city would have shut them down in a second.
From the few comments I've read on this thread everyone is eager to blame the parents as would I (upon first thought).
I tend to think that people who make the sort of comment that goes like "f-ing parents should spend some more f-ing time with their kids" come from a background where they observed (first hand or second) parents that did this.
The problem with this logic is that sometimes the parents and other family members are busy with work trying to "make a living for their family". You COULD blame parents saying they should take the time out to spend it with the kids but couldn't you really feel good about putting a father and mother in jail for life knowing that they were workign 16 hour days trying to make ends meet?
I wouldn't shift all blame away from parents nor would I place all blame on the government (or the city). I say that instead of shutting down internet cafes, they should be regulated (with some moderation either way). THEN the city government should try creating after school programs.m I think the business have a right to run a business but after school programs have shown to be effective in keeping kids out of trouble.
My thoughts are that a bunch of these kids don't have jack crap to do after school so there's nothing like playing a bit of Counterstrike (at age 23 i find myself doing the same thing). What these kids need are safe alternatives to life after school. That is a big role the government/city needs to take up.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Where does the government get off saying kids can't play games after 8? It seems to me the issue here isn't that they are playing games, its that they are playing violent games. The games people use, in conjunction with violent movies, as a scapegoat for the retards of society who go around shooting each other. I'm sure ALL of the hippest gangs frequent cyber cafes...
All I'm trying to say, is that this is not the governments place. This is where the parents should make decisions. If some kids are getting good grades and staying out of trouble then more luck to you. The thing that bothers me is the 'school night' thing. I'm 17 and I don't see the problem with me going out and playing some halflife on a 'school night'. Especially since I don't have classes that start until 3 hours after everyone else because its my senior year! These laws are understandable in some cases, but they shouldn't blanket everyone under 18.
At 17 I live on my own, support myself, pay rent, buy food, and whatnot on top of going to school. If I want to go play some fucking quake where the hell do people get off telling me I'm not responsible enough to? The truth is that I'm busy working and sleeping, but if one night I say screw it, I want to frag a couple hundred people before I go to sleep...
The governments of the country keep passing these laws that target minors. The problem is that there is a BIG difference between an 8 year old and a 17 year old, and sometimes the difference between a 17 and 18 year old is about a week. The laws shouldn't blanket all minors, and in our age where kids are smarter and work more at younger ages maybe people should rethink what being a minor really is and how appropriate the ages they choose are.
but they [children] can be sentenced to death.
And the problem with that is?
There were a bunch of little twerp 'round here that sodomised a lady with a hot curling iron and left her for dead. It would be in our best interests if our court system offed them - and their parants as well.
Almost no other country in the world does that.
And most of the rest of the world sucks - Except for parts of Asia and Europe, and a tiny part of North Africa.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.