Kym Worthy and the Evils of Video Games
I touched upon this yesterday in The Rundown, but today let’s analyze the particulars. This week Wayne County, Michigan Prosecutor Kym Worthy released her list of Top 10 Violent Video Games Played By Teens. The list, which is actually a rehash of the Mature rated section of games from the National Institute on Media and the Family Video Game Report Card for 2008, feature’s a who’s who of the most popular “M” rated games in North America. The link between “teens wanting to play these particular games” is tenuous at best, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
In a recent Detroit Free Press article Worthy was quoted as follows:
“The last year has convinced me more than ever that children are at risk of becoming desensitized to violence and can exhibit more aggressive behavior if they repeatedly play certain violent video games.”
Deeper in the report she added:
“The investigation revealed that the youths would often play violent video games. I believe that certain video games are connected to the proliferation of violent crimes being committed by youthful offenders such as Orlewicz and Letkemann.”
Worthy is best known as the firebrand prosecutor that reigned in controversial Detroit Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick, who refused to step down in the face of ten felony charges that included obstruction of justice, perjury, and assault on a Detroit police officer. That case was resolved when Kilpatrick agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice and to no contest to a felony count of assault on a police officer. He was ordered to pay restitution to the city of $1 million; surrender his law license, forfeit his state pension to the city, be barred from elective office for five years; and to serve 120 days in the Wayne County jail, followed by five years of probation. The other charges were dismissed.
Next: A Defining Moment –>
