Photo: cliff1066™In an interview with ESPN that aired over the weekend, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis said that if the NFL lockout results in a lost season, crime rates will increase. “Watch how much crime picks up if you take away our game,” Lewis told ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio. Pressed to explain why, Lewis replied, “There’s nothing else to do Sal.”
Are Americans really so addicted to professional football that its absence will lead people to go on some kind of crime rampage? Or, as Lewis seems to be implying, is it such a potent distraction that it keeps us occupied, and our violent tendencies sated? Better to watch Troy Polamalu knock a guy unconscious than doing it yourself. By that logic, crime rates should increase once the season’s over.
The NFL lockout does seem to be leading to an increase in criminal behavior among one demographic: NFL players. According to the Grio.com’s John Mitchell, arrests among NFL players have spiked during the lockout this spring.
We’ve written about the relationship between sports and crime a number of times, including here, when Dubner took on French political scientist Sebastien Roche and his theory that sport causes crime. More recently, Freakonomics contributor Justin Wolfers reported on a study showing that crime rates spike during college football game days:
[The authors'] findings are quite striking, and they report large rises in assaults, vandalism, and disorderly conduct on game days. As might be expected, this effect is large in the city of the home team, but basically non-existent in the city of the visitors.You might be worried that this rise in arrests reflects more police on the street on game day (and hence more arrests per crime), rather than simply more crime. But the authors provide a clever response, noting that upset losses by the home team have a particularly large effect on violent assaults, while expected losses have little effect. Unless police chiefs are also successfully forecasting football outcomes, it seems that this alternative explanation doesn’t hold water.
Obviously, sport was at the heart of the recent case of Bryan Stow, the San Francisco Giants fan who was severely beaten by Dodger fans after an Opening Day game in L.A.
So, what do you think?
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Isn’t this akin to the flawed “Amoral Atheist” argument? How can you expect people to be good without X? Just because the X here is sports instead of religion doesn’t make the reasoning any less suspect.
There is also the amusing, tacit admission that he thinks that most NFL fans are little more than criminals lying in wait. For all the flaws inherent in human nature, I don’t think that most people are like that. Like Ron Paul asked about drugs earlier this month: “if we legalize heroin tomorrow, is everyone is going use heroin?” No, and likewise the loss of sports won’t create criminals either.
If crime doesn’t increase, perhaps attendance at churches will as more men pray for the lockout to end (and end soon)!
I think you are taking Ray Lewis’ quote out of context. He was referring to all the people who work supporting the games… ushers, equipment staff, ticket takers, janitors at the stadiums, etc. If there’s no football, these people won’t be getting paid. His point is they will be more likely to be driven to crime.
I don’t see how that paints the comment in any better of a light. Saying all the support staff is nothing but a bunch of criminals probably isn’t going to be well received by anyone, either. To that point, what evidence is there that crime rates are tied to unemployment rates? I would expect there might be some, but I also expect they would be largely offset in areas that have social programs that reduce the need to become a criminal just to survive.
Is Ray Lewis saying that, in the absence of an NFL season, crime will increase because the pro footballers won’t have anything to do and will turn to crime?
Here in the Philippines, whenever Manny Pacquiao has a boxing match, the crime rate for that day is zero. I guess it just shows that even criminals are sports fans too. I’m not saying that boxing is similar to NFL but I think having something interesting and exciting to watch on TV discourages criminals to do bad stuff on that day, but maybe they would on another day.
I would venture that attention paid to the NFL is negatively correlated with income. So take away the circuses part of bread and circuses, and it’s only natural that you get more crime.
@Impossibly Stupid – I wasn’t saying I agree with Lewis. I was just clarifying what he meant, having heard the actual interview, and thus knowing that it differed from how the Freakonomics guys interpreted it.
I wasn’t saying you agreed, just that the clarification itself didn’t improve the context of Lewis’ comment. Whether he thinks the fans are latent criminals or just that the staff hired by the NFL are, it still reflects his mindset more than reality. Smacks of transference, which is why you see all the “joking” comments about how the players themselves are more likely to be the worst criminal offenders.
Interesting theory, however, the only demographic to have increased crime would be the players themselves. One would think that game day would lead to higher crime rates in the home town with all the boozing people do before during and after games.