Steve sent me short story, Do Video Games Equal Less Crime?. The story raises the possibility that the drop in crime rates is due to increased video game usage. Video games might be cathartic. Unfortunately, Anderson, in the science brief I blogged last has a fairly thorough answer to this possibility:
Myth 11. If violent video games cause increases in aggression, violent crime rates in the U.S. would be increasing instead of decreasing.
Facts: Three assumptions must all be true for this myth to be valid: (a) exposure to violent media (including video games) is increasing; (b) youth violent crime rates are decreasing; (c) video game violence is the only (or the primary) factor contributing to societal violence. The first assumption is probably true. The second is not true, as reported by the 2001 Report of the Surgeon General on Youth Violence (Figure 2-7, p. 25). The third is clearly untrue. Media violence is only one of many factors that contribute to societal violence and is certainly not the most important one. Media violence researchers have repeatedly noted this.
Note, however, that for Anderson media violence (including violent games) is “certainly not” the most important contributing factor. (I wonder what the others are?)
I should add that in Freakonomics it is argued that legalized abortion led to the drop in crime rates.