I have to disagree with Tri-City News reporter Diane Strandberg for her somewhat lax take about a violent video game that depicts a first-person shooter game set at Port Moody secondary school.
To be fair to Ms. Strandberg, an excellent journalist, I think we as a society are too lax when it comes to this issue.
A recent study by Iowa State University suggests there is, indeed, a connection between violent games and youth violence.
"The study published in the April issue of Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice examined the level of video game exposure for 227 juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania," the article notes.
" The average offender had committed nearly nine serious acts of violence, such as gang fighting, hitting a parent or attacking another person in the prior year. The results show that both the frequency of play and affinity for violent games were strongly associated with delinquent and violent behaviour."
I understand that 99.9% of the kids who play violent games aren't going to become cold-blooded killers. But maybe there's the one kid for whom the game becomes a trigger for a violent episode. For the potential victims of that one kid, we need to make sure these games aren't reaching our youth.
In my opinion, the only way to do that is for governments to come up with strategies to ensure game designers aren't even developing these games.
Here are a few international policies that our governments should consider:
Last month, a politician in Connecticut proposed placing a special tax on violent video games.
In 2006, jurisdictions in Germany drafted a bill that would fine and jail video game producers for games that show "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters."
Brazil has a list of games that are banned; if you sell, purchase or even possess a game on this list, you could face fines or jail time.
Canadian governments have found ways to prosecute propagators of hate speech; we also have strict regimes in place to keep alcohol and cigarettes out of the hands of children.
We need to do the same with violent video games.
