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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.
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.
"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.