Expert: Grand Theft Auto is Not Why Kids Join Street Gangs

Grafitti taggers are an interesting and diverse bunch. In one forum there's a tagger that looks all modest and buttoned up in his wedding picture. Looks like the average clean shaven 30-year old ready to settle down in life. But he has lots of grafitti books, shows off the walls he writes on and his stash of cans and other graf equipment. Maybe he does it to take a bordeom break from the usual hum-ho married life? ;)

It's more because they need a family, and their 'family' is dysfunctional, 1 parent who's never home, that sort of thing.

Videogames = Expensive = Luxury Items

Street Gangs = poor economic status = poor family structure

The very factors that bring youths to gangs are the very factors preventing said youths from affording games.

"Young Thugs: Inside the Dangerous World of Canadian Street Gangs."

So tempted to make a joke right now, must resist...

I can't do it. I just can't do it.

Be on the lookout for Canadian street gangs who beat people with hockey sticks drench them in syrup and do drive-by snowball peltings. We understand a maple leaf is their calling card.

so what are the top 10?
I can name a few

Poverty,education,jobs,peer pressure, stupidity

I really hope this thread doesn't deteriorate into stereotypes about Canada that weren't funny 20 years ago. We may not have the kind of massive gang problem many US cities have (of which I believe I know a main reason of but I won't start that debate here) but it's becoming a big problem here, particularly in central Canada. Here in Ottawa where I live, a massive graffiti epidemic has taken hold in the last couple of years, perpetrated largely by gangs of bored teenagers from the suburbs where there's nothing to do. It used to just be commercial properties but in some parts of the city, they're now started to tag private homes. I live in a pretty good neighbourhood and I fully expect to come home and see my garage door sprayed up one day soon. It's believed that these groups are largely involved in the drug trade as well as it's now almost as easy to get Ecstasy as it is to go out and buy a bag of milk. This issue is a problem everywhere.

If rural white trash America can have gangs any place can!....

People who play video games are in there house instead of being on the street, which makes them less likely to be part of gang activity. Also, many of these gang people are poor, and can't afford games.

@ Velvet_Llama

Because those in power don't want it known that their inability to solve problems and set moral standards are the real issue. It's better to blame games, music, and culture in general for the issues at hand rather than themselves, their failures, and the special interests they cater to in order to increase their own wealth at the expense of increasing those who are impoverished and/or out of work.

Roving "gangs" of teenagers appear when you don't include them in society. Teens rebel against their parents and then go... Where? The mall. Which we, as the adult community, then run them out of because they cause trouble.

The city I live in has decided that night clubs cause "degenerate behavior in youth". So the city is clamping down on the music scene and has successfully closed most of the underage dance clubs (definitely all the popular ones). Now the police are complaining they need more people because the crime rate with the same age demographic has increased exponentially. Hardly a coincidence.

*sigh* You can't expect to ostracize a group from society and then play by the rules that same society has put in place.

With all due respect, the stories are getting a bit absurdly obvious today. GTA doesn't make kids join gangs? Of course they don't! Kids playing GTA are pretty generally sitting comfotably on their couches collecting allowance money, not living in poverty in a harsh environment that breeds gangs.

I don't know that anyone has seriously made such a claim that wasn't just seeking some undeserved attention.

@Loudspeaker

Well said. In a similiar vein to what you said, when we focus on violent media products "causing" crime it gives us a simple target to demonize and attack. What this allows us to do is to ignore the broader structural factors that contribute to stable and predictable patterns of criminality. We are able to blame a folk devil instead of asking difficult questions about the structural inequities of our society or the fact that our economic system isn't working the way we would like to believe that it does.

There is a saying that if you argue with a crazy person, it's hard not to look like one yourself. Arguing the claim tends to make people think there is something of substance in the initial claim.

Correction Grizzam. Most gangsters don't care for GTA let alone other video games. Why sit in the living room or bedroom all day when real life crime is more thrilling and rewarding to them?

Beg pardon, I'm aboot ta boost ya oover the head with a fookin' hockey stick, eh?

This man is right on the money, eh? (Sorry for making that unnecessary eh, I just can't pass up that opportunity)