Violent movies lower violent crime?

Over the last decade, they say, the showing of violent films in the United States has decreased assaults by an average of about 1,000 a weekend, or 52,000 a year.

It has been accepted that violent media influences violent behavior, yet a study by economists found trends that violent movies lower violent crime.

Taking a decade of national crime reports, cinema ratings and movie audience data, economists found that after popular violent films are shown there is no rise in crimes from the initial hours the movie ends to as far as weeks. The explanation for the phenomenon is the theory that violent movies attract those likely to commit crime thus placing them in a non-violent environment.

The researchers noted their findings do not refute the studies correlating violent behavior with violent media nor does it explain the long term effects of exposure to violent media.

To go so far as to say that these findings are flawed is exaggerated but its premises meet many contradictions based on violent movies that have been released in the past. One notable movie "Natural Born Killers" is a prime example that refutes the overall idea that violent movies decrease violent crime. The movie "Natural Born Killers" has been in the spotlight of many notorious murders. "Natural Born Killers" was said to be influenced in previous murders and killing sprees including the Columbine High School massacre to a recent case of Eric Tavulares who strangled his girlfriend after watching some of the movie.

Do violent movies take some potential violent people off the streets? Yes. But do violent movies influence others to commit crime? Yes. "Natural Born Killers" is not the only movie that has been criticized for influencing those who have commit homicide, thus it is difficult to confidently say that violent movies lower crime.

Economists Say Movie Violence Might Temper the Real Thing

FBI Criminal Profiling, Unreliable?

Last years November 17th issue of New Yorker magazine, Malcom Gladwell dissected the effectiveness of criminal profiling by the FBI and exposed its weaknesses by showing how the methods in developing a profile held little scientific or deductive merit. A year later, there is still little scientific evidence that validates the profiling methods of the FBI.

In an older (1998) article Brent E. Turvey points out two methods of criminal profiling. The method he criticizes as inductive criminal profiling fall under the same scrutiny as Gladwell's criticisms of the FBI's methods. But Turvey's embraced method of profiling, which he calls deductive criminal profiling, attempts to measure a profile through forensic evidence, crime scene analysis and victimology rather than anecdotal experience of the profile, prior studies and data sources that inductive profiling is reliant upon.

It is no mystery that the popularity of profiling has boomed through media exposure. Many people fail to separate the myths that they see on TV with what actually is/can be done in real life. Both men, Turvey and Gladwell, provide strong argument against the profiling methods that the FBI have claimed to use; the same methods commonly seen on television in crime dramas. Criminal profiling has its uses as a supplement to "old school" detective work but it is clearly not a replacement.

Malcom Gladwell's Dangerous Minds

Brent E. Turvey's Deductive Criminal Profiling