"Does Movie Violence Increase Violent Crime?"

Violent movies increase aggression but during the movie violent people are in the theatre watching.  They're not drinking while they watch either.  Crime rates are down during the movie and for a while after.  On balance?  Violence drops on the weekends violent blockbusters come out.

That's what Gordon Dahl and Stefano DellaVigna find in this analysis of short-run impacts: Does Movie Violence Increase Violent Crime? (NBER, , January 2008).   Here's the abstract:

Laboratory experiments in psychology find that media violence increases aggression in the short run. We analyze whether media violence affects violent crime in the field.

We exploit variation in the violence of blockbuster movies from 1995 to 2004, and study the effect on same-day assaults.

We find that violent crime decreases on days with larger theater audiences for violent movies. The effect is partly due to voluntary incapacitation: between 6PM and 12AM, a one million increase in the audience for violent movies reduces violent crime by 1.1 to 1.3 percent. After exposure to the movie, between 12AM and 6AM, violent crime is reduced by an even larger percent. This finding is explained by the self-selection of violent individuals into violent movie attendance, leading to a substitution away from more volatile activities. In particular, movie attendance appears to reduce alcohol consumption.

Like the laboratory experiments, we find indirect evidence that movie violence increases violent crime; however, this effect is dominated by the reduction in crime induced by a substitution away from more dangerous activities. Overall, our estimates suggest that in the short-run violent movies deter almost 1,000 assaults on an average weekend. While our design does not allow us to estimate long-run effects, we find no evidence of medium-run effects up to three weeks after initial exposure.

Comments

[Ana]

What can be done about it?

[rate movies]

i think it does. When kids see violence they learn from it. But there
is nothing you can do about it.

rate new and old movies

[watch movie]

I always love watch Movies about Ethical Dilemmas . i think the are great.we can avoid the gaps and we must confront them.

[r4 gold]

A violent movie results in less crime in the short run, could increased violence on the big screen result in a more violent society over the course of many years?

[Nollywood]

I think it contribute a bit OR it depends on the viewer.

I remember when I was 6 year old, I imitated a scene where an actor jumped from a roof, so I broke my leg huhuhu!

this is a good sample.