Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban on Sale of Violent Video Games to Children

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The U.S. Supreme Court Monday struck down a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children in a 7-to-2 decision.  The majority opinion in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, equated video game content with that of books and films.

“Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world),” Justice Scalia wrote. “That suffices to confer First Amendment protection.”

Justice Scalia wrote that violence in literature and art have never been subject to government regulation. “Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed,” he wrote. The California law defined violent video games as “patently offensive” when “the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being” and lacked “serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. Stores that sold violent video games to minors would have been subject to $1,000 fines.

Fighting Gang Violence with Research and Empirical Evidence

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ORLANDO, Fla, - Frontline practitioners working on gang prevention, intervention and suppression are gathered this week for the National Gang Symposium in Orlando, Fla. For prevention, think of the Boys & Girls Club. For intervention, think of the Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries, whose motto is “nothing stops a bullet like a job.” And for suppression, well, of course, think of the police. The number crunchers from the National Gang Center, using their own just released data, are telling symposium attendees today that gangs remain a substantial problem in the nation. However, gang levels are lower than the peak levels in the mid-1990s, and law enforcement agencies reported gang activity in their jurisdictions at about the same levels for five straight years – all this during a time when overall violence is way down.

Grant Supports Men Who Oppose Violence Against Kids

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The U.S. Department of Justice and the Office on Violence Against Woman is offering the Engaging Men in Preventing Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking Program. This Program assists the movement to end violence against women by including men. A recent national poll indicated that 73 percent of men feel they can help reduce domestic violence and sexual assault. This is the first program that supports projects that help raise awareness in the critical roles that men play in prevention of violence against women and girls. The aim is to help develop new male leaders who will speak and act to oppose violence against women. The deadline for this grant is June 30, 2011.

McNeill Stokes On Sentencing Juveniles as Adults and Cruel and Unusual Punishment

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In 1997, a 14-year-old boy named Christopher Middleton pled guilty in a Georgia Superior Court to armed robbery, two counts of aggravated assault and kidnapping arising out of theft of the victim’s vehicle for joyriding by his juvenile friends. (His mother Jajuana Calloway wrote about him in this space last week.)

He was sentenced as an adult without the possibly of parole pursuant to a measure that was enacted by the Georgia Legislature (H.R. 440 and 441) in 1995 to get tough on juvenile crime and often called seven deadly sins legislation. The prosecution had agreed to a recommended 20-year sentence. However, at the sentencing hearing the victim who had not received any physical injuries, said she would not feel safe with the 14-year old being released before he would be 45 years of age. The trial judge then sentenced him to 30 years without the possibility of parole.

Memo to Wile E. Coyote: Violence Won’t Make Kids Like You

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Here’s a conclusion that may surprise you about as much as one of the anvils that Jerry the mouse manages to drop on Tom the cat’s head from time to time: Kids don’t miss violence when it doesn’t appear in their favorite cartoons; what they’re really looking for is action. That’s the verdict of a study by professors at four universities whose finding’s have been published in the journal Media Psychology. Assistant Telecommunications Professor Andrew J. Weaver of Indiana University and his colleagues were testing the reason that producers and programmers often give for including violence in kid’s cartoons —  that children want to see it. "Violence isn't the attractive component in these cartoons which producers seem to think it is,” Weaver said. “It's more other things that are often associated with the violence.

Unique Study Says Evidence Backs Claims Violent Videogames Harm Teens

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For years, scientists have been studying whether violent video games are harmful to teens, but their findings have often contradicted one another. Now, three researchers have analyzed the data from experts who filed briefs in a U.S. Supreme Court case involving violent video games. The case, Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association, decides whether California can ban the sale or rental of violent video games to kids under 18. They found that experts who believe violent video games are harmful to teens published more evidence than those who do not believe they are harmful. "The evidence suggests that those who argue violent video games are harmful have a lot more experience and stronger credentials than those who argue otherwise," said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.

Witnessing Violence Creates Violent Kids, Study Says

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Children who witness violence often think it is normal, a development that can lead to violent behavior, says a new study in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. The researchers, who surveyed 800 children between the ages of 8 and 12, asked the children if they had witnessed violence on television, at home or at school.  Six months later they were polled a second time.  Children who said they had witnessed violence were aggressive, according to the study. "People exposed to a heavy diet of violence come to believe that aggression is a normal way to solve conflict and get what you want in life,” the study’s authors wrote.  “These beliefs lower their inhibitions against aggression against others." The full study is available by subscription only, but you can read more at ScienceDaily.

Abusive Teenage Relationships on the Rise

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Thompson High School student Shakira Hudson was 15 when she was killed.  Audrey Atkinson of Covington was 19. Jasmine Harris of Atlanta was 17 and pregnant. All three died in 2010. Boyfriends or ex-boyfriends were charged with their murders. The girls' deaths were among 130 recorded by the Georgia Commission on Family Violence and the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence in the 2010 Georgia Domestic Violence Fatality Report, the largest number of such homicides since the first annual report in 2003.

JJIE.org SchoolHouse Witness Project in National News Challenge

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As you know, the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange is a trial project to find new ways to support the coverage of important niche issues that the mainstream media no longer covers. So we are always looking for ways to improve our coverage, especially in reaching out to you to supply information that our reporters need to know. In this digital age we have to make that as easy as possible; hence, our idea for the SchoolHouse Witness Project. I like it a lot and submitted it to the Knight News Challenge, which underwrites innovative ideas. We are now in the Second Round of the competition.