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Reducing Crime Through Gameplay
Via Kotaku, a piece on Spong that sees games being put to good use in a social context. Edinburgh, Scotland police officers are using weekly PlayStation 2 tournaments with troubled youths as a way to bridge the gap between law enforcement and folks that (under less auspicious circumstances) they might have confrontations with. From the article: "The tournaments so far have been between members of the local Police Youth Action Team and a group of around 30 youths who are known regular offenders. Since the initiative started it seems to have had the effect of cutting crime in the locality quite dramatically. Officers dealt with 92 complaints in the month before the competition but only 53 while it was running. Ninety-three calls were received during the same period last year."
The subject says it all...
I really don't understand all the hatemongering about games, are people SO worried about "everybody elses's kids" that they ignore that teaching moral and ethics is the parents job?
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Whilst it's certainly great that such effort can help reduce youth crime, this program is part of a larger group of similar programs which is kind of starting to irritate me as a whole.
The main concern here is not the result of these programs, but rather the idea that a lot of society's money is being spent on the "bad apples"; the criminal youth is in a way being rewarded for their past behaviour by giving them all kinds of stuff.
It might just be nice, for a change, to organize something fun like this for the youth who actually haven't done anything criminal in their previous years; reward the good guys for a change.
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As soon as this gets popular, more kids will start commiting crimes on regular basis, just to be allowed to participate in the tournament :)
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I know the Police here often have Rugby games with the local Motorcycle gangs for similar reasons. Computer games are a natural progression now they're played as much as more traditional sports.
After all, it's hard to commit felonies and pwnz the local copper at the same time - unless the trash talking counts...
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[The following was my respose on Kotaku. I can't register on this site as /. won't seem to let me...]
You would think that Edinburgh being home to Rockstar North, developer of the Grand Theft Auto series, that this would cause an uproar equal or similar to the negative reaction found all over the world. This is not the case though.
Our local media concentrates more on the economical benefits of Scotland's gaming industy which of course owes most of its' success to Rockstar and GTA.
As with the rest of the UK, every GTA game released here has been illegal for those under 18 years of age to purchase and similarly, it has always been an offence for retailers to knowingly supply the game to minor. What the police forces across Central Scotland have realised though is that kids don't play GTA because it's a violent game and they want to 'learn' how to misbehave or anything like that. They understand that kids want to play GTA because it's a good game!
I think anything that occupies kids outwith of school hours is an excellent idea and this just one example of the good work the police does for Scotland's youth. What's more, the organised gaming mentioned here includes a nice mix of popular titles, which is better still.
So hopefully the good work continues in convincing people that games are not a danger to children as long as responsible supervision and guidence is provided. And maybe one day, we'll see Grand Theft Auto: Edinburgh!
giant_frying_pan [giant_frying_pan@yahoo.com]
how would you go about organizing such a thing? "It's double tokens night next thursday at the arcade! Don't forget to submit for a background check before the cutoff date!"
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Adding other activities to this program. This may destroy my geekdom, but not all kids like video games. In fact, a number of them probably think they are "teh Ghey", and would rather be out impressing thier friends.
Now that they have a valid starting point for gathering kids around a singular area, what about incorporating other options, like sports, or refitting abandoned cars, or something.
hmmmm?
I would think that the games provide a good excuse for these kids to interact with the authority figures in a social way, rather than the way they normally do, adversarially. It's not so much the games that lower their chances of commiting further crime, but the way they now know and feel about the police.
They likely get to know them on a personal basis. When faced with a choice to commit a crime and disappointing that "cool cop I fragged with last week" or walking away and doing something else, they choose the latter. It could likely work with any activity that could be interesting to a kids: building rockets, playing sports, working on cars.
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Kids who don't commit crimes probably already have friends to play games with. They don't need police officers to frag.
The kids in TFA are probably lonely (that's one of the big causes for gang involvement), and they need an outlet.
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While I'm intrigued by the 50% drop, I can't help but wonder whether the number will remain stable over time. Right now the tournament is a welcome change, but what happens when people start tiring of it? It will probably be necessary to add new games and activities in order to keep the interest of the kids over a longer period of time.
haha, yeah, they were too busy playing videogames to respond.
1. Take a bunch of violent and troublesome teens who have a lack of respect for authority.
2. Have them engage in a highly competitive video game tournament against other teens with similar issues that would in no way cause increased levels of aggression.
3.? ? ?
4. Hilarity ensues...err...PROFIT!!!
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Increasing the interaction between police and troublesome teenagers in a way that doesn't involve getting searched for weapons is a Good Thing. In the US, there's a huge mistrust of police* in less affluent communities, and this sort of community policing could help educate a generation of kids to be less distrustful of the police. Hopefully, that would help to break part of the parent-to-child chain of low education, criminal activity, and other negative factors which keep poor families poor.
* I realize there are bad apples among police, but most of them are just folks doing their jobs and hoping to make a positive impact on the community.
They are surprisingly easy to compare: drugs and games (or even television)
Reducing Drugs through Caffine