Recessions lead to unemployment, which tends to disproportionally fall on the young. Thus in previous recessions there was a strong correlation between unemployment and crime: Angry young men with nothing else to do hanging out at street corners usually leads to no good. Not so in this recession. Although unemployment is up, crime is down, by around 5 percent. How come? Economist Lawrence Katz suspects video games.
Basically angry young man living out there aggression in a video game not only keeps them too busy to commit crimes in real life, it also gives them an outlet for their anger. Better they play GTA than break into real cars.
Who would have thought that video games would get such nice press?
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