An East Baltimore citizen suggests a freaky explanation for recent violence in the city: “Check the date they cut off free cable, and watch the next day the murder rates go crazy. The moment they stopped it the kids were on the street 3 or 4 a.m. in the morning. No stories, no cartoon network, nothing to do. That’s the real problem,” says Eric Brockton, the founder of a group called No More Guns. (HT: Chuck Amos) [%comments]
TV and Crime
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I seriously doubt that its “kids” in the streets at 3-4 AM. More likely gangs, who presumably don’t watch much TV anyway.
Free cable! They have killed for that in GA where I live.
Look like a similar phenomenon to the relationship between online porn and rape.
So now television is the opiate of the masses?
Give them free TV broadcast on a brilliant HUGE LCD Flatscreen with surround sound Dolby and even 3D. But put a channel lock tuned to an Evangelical Ministry Station who Preaches to Save Your Soul and Urge You to Reject Satan and all His Minions. Miracle Cures of Live Lepers at the top of the hour. Billowing Robes. Toupees. Fat People singing Opera with a Heavenly Harp. Tin Foil Halos and Angel wings made of Sheer Old Pantyhose.
NO COMMERCIALS, but frequent fund raisers and chiding pleas for donations.
I KNOW this will have a positive impact. SOULS will be saved. OR People will figure out that Couch Surfing is NO Life. OR everyone wil be too tired to try to change the channel, they will just settle for passive listening and hope the next hour brings something more interesting…or not.
Free Cable? The article states that it was pirated cable, not “free” cable. Pinning this on the cable company hardly seems rational.
“cable’s out, now what?”
“murder?”
“you read my mind.”
It does make a certain logical sense though in a Freakenomics sort of way. TV is definitely an opiate for the masses. It can keep people distracted \ entertained for hours at a time.
How do you confirm something like this though? You’d have to know what the young people do without TV. Read, sit inside, go out on the street?
If more go out on the street, what’s the odds they get into trouble?