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Crime Rate / Incarceration Rate
Scientists have concluded that exposure to violent TV does indeed lead to more aggressive thoughts, attitudes and actions. Could this help explain the fact that the homicide rate nearly doubled from the mid 1960's to the late 1970's (see graphs) Also by Age. In reaction to this huge crime increase, the public supported policies that have led to a 500% increase in the incarceration rate (from 1970 to 2008). This has brought the crime back down to the early 1960s levels, but the United States now has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world (pdf) - see also The New York Times (April 2008)
Note: the 1960's was the first time large number of people came of age after spending substantial portions of their childhood in front of the tube.
But, did TV cause the huge crime increase starting in the mid 1960's? There is no way to prove this. But TV proponents often argue that the reduction in crime to early 1960 levels by the year 2000, is proof that TV is not the culprit. They fail to mention that the U.S.A. has had to increase the rate of incarceration by more than 500% to accomplish this reduction.
Incarceration Rate (1925 - 2008)
 
See also: http://www.justice.gov/archive/mps/strategic2000_2005/appd.htm
and http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/hmrt.cfm
Note: scientists are arguing that TV increases aggression. No one is arguing that violent TV is the only cause of violence, just one of many (such as childhood neglect, family income, neighborhood violence, parental education, and psychiatric disorders).
As for the incarceration rate reducing crime, we could reduce the crime rate to zero by putting enough people in prison. Note: The second factor keeping the murder rate from being any worse is medical technology.
Homicide rate per year per 100,000 inhabitants in the United States from 1910 to 2006 - Wikipedia
"A surge in violent crime that began last year accelerated in the first half of 2006, the FBI reported yesterday, providing the clearest signal yet that the historic drop in the U.S. crime rate has ended and is being reversed." - Washington Post (Dec 2006)
"Homicide rates in South Africa - Before & After TV" - The New Citizen (Fall 1992)
"Four years ago, Bhutan, the fabled Himalayan Shangri-la, became the last nation on earth to introduce television. Suddenly a culture, barely changed in centuries, was bombarded by 46 cable channels. And all too soon came Bhutan's first crime wave - murder, fraud, drug offences." - The Guardian (June 2003)
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Examples from the Research
"Three-year-old children who are exposed to more TV appear to be at an increased risk for exhibiting aggressive behavior, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals." - Science Daily (Nov 2009) and Natural News (Nov 2009)
 "This article examines the play behavior of 70 preschool children and its relationship to television violence and regulatory status. Linear regression analysis showed that violent program content and poor self-regulation were independently and significantly associated with overall and physical aggression." - ECRP (2009)
"The research shows that even when other factors are considered, such as academic skills, encounters with community violence, or emotional problems, “childhood and adolescent violent media preferences contributed significantly to the prediction of violence and general aggression” in the study subjects." - ScienceDaily (Nov 2008)
"Published in the July issue of the Psychology of Popular Media Culture -- a journal by the American Psychological Association -- the study identifies media violence exposure as one of six risk factors for predicting later aggression in 430 children (ages 7-11, grades 3-5) from five Minnesota schools. In addition to media violence exposure, the remaining risk factors are bias toward hostility, low parental involvement, gender, physical victimization and prior physical fights." - Medical Express (July 2012)
"Watching media violence significantly increases the risk that a viewer or video game player will behave aggressively in both the short and long term, according to a University of Michigan study published today in a special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health." - ScienceDaily (Nov 2007)
"Violent TV May Lead to Antisocial Kids: Study Shows Watching TV Violence as a Preschooler May Lead to Later Antisocial Behavior" - WebMD (Nov 2007) - more on the same study - Suite 101 (Nov 2007)
"Television Viewing and Forms of Bullying among Adolescents from Eight Countries" - Journal of Adolescent Health 39 (2006) pdf and Journal of Adolescent Health 39 (2006)
"Summary: Offers a look at a study that reveals that television violence makes children more aggressive and these more aggressive kids turn to watching more television to justify their own behavior. Study according to Leonard Eron; Details of the study; Conclusion that what one learns about life from the television screen seems to be transmitted even to the next generation." - Psychology Today (2006)
"Four-year-old children who watch more television than average are more likely to become bullies, research suggests." - BBC (April 2005)
"Watching violence on television, says Eron, leads to heightened aggressiveness, which in turn leads to more violence-viewing on TV. "Children who behave aggressively are less popular--and, perhaps because their relations with their peers tend to be unsatisfying, less popular children watch more television and therefore view more violence." From TV, they learn new techniques of agression, which makes them even less popular with their peers, which in turn drives them back to TV." - Psychology Today (2005)
"Childhood Exposure To Media Violence Predicts Young Adult Aggressive Behavior, According To A New 15-Year Study" - American Psychological Association (March 2003)
"Childhood Viewing of TV Violence Affects Women as Well as Men" - Newswise (March 2003) More on the same study - University of Michigan (2003)
"Researchers tracked about 700 boys and girls for 17 years. Even accounting for factors such as family income, childhood neglect or psychiatric disorders, the link between watching violent television and behaving aggressively as an adult remains, the study said. " - CNN (March 2002) and Scientific American (March 2002)
"Watching Wrestling Positively Associated with Date Fighting" - ScienceDaily (May 2001)
"Television shows like "The Bionic Woman" and "Charlie's Angels" may have faded into rerun history, but the heroines' aggressive behavior lingers in the psyches of many of the young women who watched such shows avidly 15 or 20 years ago." - The University Record (Feb 1996)
"In 1973, a small Canadian town (called "Notel" by the investigators) acquired television for the first time. The acquisition of television at such a late date was due to problems with signal reception rather than any hostility toward television. Joy et al20 investigated the impact of television on this virgin community, using as control groups two similar communities that already had television. In a double-blind research design, a cohort of 45 first- and second-grade students were observed prospectively over a period of 2 years for rates of objectively measured noxious physical aggression (e.g., hitting, shoving, and biting). Rates of physical aggression did not change significantly among children in the two control communities. Two years after the introduction of television, rates of physical aggression among children in Notel had increased by 160% (P<.001)." - Scribd.com (June 1992) and Cursor.org (June 1992)
"Media's New Mood: Sexual Violence" - Center for Media Literacy
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How Violent TV Effects the Brain
"As expected, the results showed that all of the aggressive children had reduced activity in their frontal cortex while completing the task, regardless of their levels of media violence exposure. But researchers found that nonaggressive children who had high levels of media violence exposure also displayed a similar pattern of low activity in the frontal cortex. Children in this group who weren't exposed to high levels of media violence had more frontal cortex activity." - WebMD (June 2005) and ScienceDaily (June 2005)
TV Violence and Brainmapping in Children - Psychiatric Times (Oct 2001) and cmch (Oct 2001) and eHow.com (Feb 2012)
Introduction to the Frontal Lobe - Wikipedia
"Watching graphically violent or emotional scenes in a movie may induce enough stress to interfere with your problem solving ability, says a study." - Bio-Medicine (Nov 2005)
The Neuroscience of Porn - The Frontal Cortex (Sept 2006)
"Neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni discusses mirror neurons, autism and the potentially damaging effects of violent movies." - Scientific American (July 2008)
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TV Violence & Natural Experiments
"After five years of broadcasting, Bhutan's government is considering legislation to regulate what the country's people can watch. What effect has five years of TV had on the country?" - BBC (June 2004)
"Four years ago, Bhutan, the fabled Himalayan Shangri-la, became the last nation on earth to introduce television. Suddenly a culture, barely changed in centuries, was bombarded by 46 cable channels. And all too soon came Bhutan's first crime wave - murder, fraud, drug offences." - The Guardian (June 2003)
"The Impact of Television: A Natural Experiment in Three Communities" - The World (Jan 1995) and Amazon
"In 1973, a small Canadian town (called "Notel" by the investigators) acquired television for the first time. The acquisition of television at such a late date was due to problems with signal reception rather than any hostility toward television. Joy et al20 investigated the impact of television on this virgin community, using as control groups two similar communities that already had television. In a double-blind research design, a cohort of 45 first- and second-grade students were observed prospectively over a period of 2 years for rates of objectively measured noxious physical aggression (e.g., hitting, shoving, and biting). Rates of physical aggression did not change significantly among children in the two control communities. Two years after the introduction of television, rates of physical aggression among children in Notel had increased by 160% (P<.001)." - Scribd.com (June 1992) and Cursor.org (June 1992)
"When I published my original paper in 1989, I predicted that white South African homicide rates would double within 10 to 15 years after the introduction of television in 1975, the rate having already increased 56% by 1983 (the most recent year then available).8 As of 1987, the white South African homicide rate had reached 5.8 homicides per 100 000 white population, a 130% increase in the homicide rate from the rate of 2.5 per 100 000 in 1974, the last year before television was introduced." - Scribd.com (June 1992) and Cursor.org (June 1992)
"JAMA Study: Link found between TV and homicide rates" - The New Citizen (Fall 1992)
"Youth Crime in N.C. linked to media violence" - The New Citizen (Fall 1992)
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How Violent TV Increases Aggression Among Viewers
"Violent video games and movies make people numb to the pain and suffering of others, according to a research report published in the March 2009 issue of Psychological Science." - Science Daily (Feb 2009)
"Television characters like Dirty Harry or Bugs Bunny may seem harmless, but it's such characters who appear justified and rewarded in their portrayals of violence on television that could have a long-term negative effect on children, according to a team of University of Michigan psychologists." - American Psychological Association (May 2003)
How TV teaches Aggression - Thinkquest
"Many people believe that children are more aggressive than they used to be. If this is so, social psychologist Albert Bandura has found at least one reason why – social learning – the children copy the behavior modeled by others around them, and that imitation is influenced by reward and punishment." - A Line on Life (May 1995)
"Frequently viewing TV violence – with both children and adults – is directly related to increased aggression. Frequently viewed violence makes aggression seem like a social norm. In other words, it leads viewers to see aggression as an acceptable way – sometimes the only way – to solve conflicts. After viewing violent programs, children play more roughly – fighting more frequently, breaking toys, or snatching toys away from others." - A Line on Life (Nov 1995)
"The more children are exposed to violence, the more they think it's normal, according to a study in the current Social Psychological and Personality Science. Unfortunately, the more they think violence is normal, the more likely they are to engage in aggression against others." - PsyOrg (March 2011)
"What is Social Learning Theory?" - About.com
"Trained to Kill: A military expert on the psychology of killing explains how today's media condition kids to pull the trigger." David Grossman (August 1998)
Neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni discusses mirror neurons, autism and the potentially damaging effects of violent movies. - Scientific American (July 2008)
"Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center’s Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) Research Center have shown that watching violent programs can cause parts of your brain that suppress aggressive behaviors to become less active." - Physorg (Dec 2007) - More on the same study - Science Daily (Dec 2007)
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Can Catharsis Reduce Anger?
"Periodically in this blog, I have explored the positive and negative effects of video games. In a previous post, I discussed that playing violent video games can promote aggression. One reason why this may be a problem is that many people think that playing video games may lead to catharsis. So, here is the problem in a nutshell. If someone holds the belief that playing a violent video game will help them to blow off steam when they are angry, then they may choose to play violent video games when they are angry. The violent video game may actually promote aggressive behaviors rather than stopping them. So, people may unwillingly make themselves more aggressive when they intended to make themselves less aggressive." - Psychology Today Blog (July 2010)
"You Can't Punch Your Way Out of Anger" - Psychology Today Blog (Sept 2009)
"Anger: the misunderstood emotion" - Google Books
"Though pop psychology books and articles perpetuate the notion that ''getting your anger out'' is cathartic and can help dissipate hostility, the researchers have found just the opposite: Venting anger on inanimate objects -- punching a pillow or hitting a punching bag, for example -- increases rather than decreases aggressive behavior." - APA (March 1999) see also The New York Times (March 1999)
"Is viewing violence cathartic? The large amount of violence in the mass media is often justified by the concept of catharsis. The word catharsis comes from the Greek word katharsis , which literally translated means “a cleansing or purging.” The first recorded mention of catharsis occurred more than one thousand years ago, in the work Poetics by Aristotle. Aristotle taught that viewing tragic plays gave people emotional release ( katharsis ) from negative feelings such as pity, fear, and anger." - Online Encyclopedia
"Releasing pent-up energy, or fluids, was Aristotle’s counter argument to Plato who felt poetry and drama filled people up with silliness and made them unbalanced." - You Are Not So Smart (Aug 2010)
"It turns out that when put to the test, researchers have discovered that not only does venting not necessarily improve our psychological state, it may actually worsen it." - Psychology Today (Feb 2011)
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Violent TV and Aggression - Two Theories
"What happens when a child is exposed to violent entertainment? Two theories are helpful in answering that question. One, social cognitive theory (formerly called social learning), posits that children learn ideas, values, emotions, and even behaviors by observing others in their social environment.75 Children can imitate people in their immediate surroundings or they can imitate characters in the media. Indeed, children as young as one are capable of imitating simple behaviors displayed on television.76 According to social learning theory, children are more likely to imitate observed behaviors that are rewarded than those that are punished.77 Children will also imitate behaviors that produce no consequences because, especially in the case of antisocial acts, the lack of punishment can serve as a tacit reward.78 The type of media role model also makes a difference. Children are most likely to learn from models that are attractive and from those they perceive as similar to themselves.79"
"Social cognitive theory, then, helps explain how children can acquire new behaviors from watching a media character on the screen. Rowell Huesmann uses a second theory, information processing theory, to explain the long-term effects of media exposure. Focusing on the learning of scripts—mental routines for familiar events that are stored in a person's memory—Huesmann theorizes that children develop scripts for bedtime routines, for going to the doctor, and even for getting ready for school.80 He argues that a child who is exposed to a great deal of violence, either in real life or through the media, will acquire scripts that promote aggression as a way of solving problems. Once learned, these scripts can be retrieved from memory at any time, especially when the situation at hand resembles features of the script. The more often an aggressive script is retrieved, the more it is reinforced and becomes applicable to a wider set of circumstances. Thus, children who are repeatedly exposed to media violence develop a stable set of aggressive scripts that are easily prompted and serve as a guide in responding to social situations."
- The Future Of Children - Princeton Brookings
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Why Violent TV Increases Aggression - Quick Overview
"47% of violent television programs show the victim going unharmed, especially in cartoons.
73% of individuals who commit crimes in cartoons and children's shows go unpunished in violent scenes
Violence is a good way to solve problems.
Television creates heroes out of the people who commit the crimes
Television reduces the value of life
Children cannot tell the difference between real and unreal." - ThinkQuest
"Why do media have the effects they do? Let's consider several explanations." - Education.com (2009)
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Why Violent TV Increases Aggression - Violent Scripts
"According to Huesmann, the process through which scripts are formed is a learning process involving both observational and enactive components. The primary learning process is one in which the child observes sequences of behavior by others and encodes these sequences into a cognitive script. This is observational learning. The secondary learning process occurs when the child utilizes this script to guide his or her own behavior and is reinforced (positively or negatively) for the resulting response. This is enactive learning. Both learning processes may alter the structure of a script, affect the strength with which it is encoded, and its connections to other elements in the child's cognitive schema. Cognitive rehearsal of a script will also strengthen its encoding and connectedness. Furthermore, through a process of cognitive abstraction, subsets of learned scripts may be converted into more general scripts that provide overall guiding principles for social behavior. Thus, the scripts that guide the child into "childish" aggressive behavior form the basis for a set of more general scripts guiding the adult into adult "aggressive" behavior.
It is clear that, according to this theory, the child's observation of dramatic or real violence in childhood could contribute to the construction of lasting cognitive structures that would affect the child's behavior in childhood and when he or she was grown. The theory suggests, however, that the role for adult exposure to media violence in the learning of aggressive behavior is limited. Scripts for social behavior may still be learned during adulthood, but we adopt the developmental perspective that scripts learned early are the most influential. In practical terms this means that the theory predicts little relation between adult aggression and an adult's exposure to media violence but a significant relation between childhood exposure and childhood aggression. Furthermore, childhood exposure to media violence should be related to adult aggression to the extent that childhood aggression is related to adult aggression." - University of Illinois (Chapter 7)
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Desensitization
"To understand the effects of repeated exposure to violence, researchers have suggested that viewers become comfortable with violence that is initially anxiety provoking, much as they would if they were undergoing exposure therapy." - Wikipedia
"The more we expose ourselves to a something, the more we get used to it. This process, known as ‘habituation’, applies to all sorts of things – bright lights, level of wealth and, yes, the taste of food." - Discovery Magazine (Dec 2010)
"An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of repeated exposure to sexually violent films on emotional desensitization and callousness toward domestic abuse victims. Results indicated that emotional response, self-reported physiological arousal, and ratings of the extent to which the films were sexually violent all diminished with repeated film exposure. Three days following exposure to the final film, experimental participants expressed significantly less sympathy for domestic violence victims, and rated their injuries as less severe, than did a no-exposure comparison group." - APA PsycNET (Sept 1995)
"Violent video games and movies make people numb to the pain and suffering of others, according to a research report published in the March 2009 issue of Psychological Science." - Science Daily (Feb 2009)
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Empathy
"Cross-lagged panel analyses showed significant pathways from T1 media violence usage to higher physical aggression and lower empathy at T2." - Science Direct (Feb 2010)
"Today's college students are not as empathetic as college students of the 1980s and '90s, a University of Michigan study shows." - Science Daily (May 2010)
"Evil comes from empathy erosion and "turning people into objects."" - Psychology Today (June 2011)
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Aestheticization of Violence
"Morales argues that "...Tarantino manages to do precisely what Alex de Large was trying to do in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange: he presents violence as a form of expressive art...[in which the]...violence is so physically graceful, visually dazzling and meticulously executed that our instinctual, emotional responses undermine any rational objections we may have. Tarantino is able to transform an object of moral outrage into one of aesthetic beauty...[, in which,]...like all art forms, the violence serves a communicative purpose apart from its aesthetic value." When the female sword-wielding protagonist "...skillfully slices and dices her way through...[the opposing fighters]...we get a sense that she is using them as a kind of canvas for her expression of revenge...[,]...like an artist who expresses herself through brush and paint,...[she]...expresses herself through sword and blood."[5]" - Wikipedia
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Violence on TV
"The Parents Television Council, an advocacy group, reported on Wednesday that the portrayal of violence against women and teenage girls on prime-time broadcast television shows had increased at a faster rate than overall violence on television." - The New York Times (Oct 2009)
"They found higher levels of physical aggression in designated children's programs (rated TV-Y and TV-Y7) than among programs for general audiences (rated TV-G, TV-PG, etc.)." - Science Daily (March 2009)
"In a paper published in the August issue of the journal Pediatrics, Dartmouth researchers document the alarming numbers of young adolescents age 10-14 who are exposed to graphic violence in movies rated R for violence." - Science Daily (Aug 2008)
"There's something wrong with Dexter the serial killer" - The Guardian (July 2007)
"Americans are being subjected to more sex, violence and profane language during the traditional, early evening “family hour” of broadcast television viewing, a watchdog group said on Wednesday." - Reuters (Sept 2007)
"Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: A Content Analysis of Children's Television" - Parents Television Council (March 2006)
"Ever since the regulation of children's television in the 1980s, marketing violence to children through the media has become increasingly prevalent. The violent programs themselves, as well as the toys, video games, and other products linked to them, glorify violence, undermine play, and portray racial stereotypes. While these practices harm all young children, they present a special risk for children of color because of how racial messages are linked to violence in the shows. This situation is especially worrisome for young children of color who are disproportionately represented among low-income children, consume more hours of media per day, and have many other risk factors undermining their healthy development." - High Beam (Fall 2003)
Violence on Prime Time Broadcast Television 1998-2006 - Parents Television Council (2006)
"An average American child will see 200,000 violent acts and 16,000 murders on TV by age 18 " - University of Michigan
"Three-year Study Documents Nature of Television Violence" - American Academy of Pediatrics (August 1998)
TV Violence And Children - Turn Off Your TV (2004)
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Social Aggression on TV
"All the gossip, insults and dirty looks add up fast on popular reality shows, far outpacing the level seen in equally popular dramas, comedies and soap operas according to a new Brigham Young University study. The researchers looked at five reality shows and five non-reality shows and found 52 acts of aggression per hour on reality TV compared to 33 per hour for the non-reality programs." - eScience News (May 2010) and PsyOrg (May 2010)
"Past research has shown that viewing physical violence on TV activates aggressive scripts in the brain, but our findings suggest that watching both onscreen physical or relational aggression activates those cognitive scripts," Linder said. "Viewers don't simply choose to imitate TV characters or make a conscious decision to engage in aggressive behavior. Aggressive reactions are more automatic and less conscious than most people assume." - Medical Express (March 2012)
"Indirect Aggression on Sceen... They successfully spread rumours, damage relationships, distort reality, and destroy the reputations..." - The Psychologist (Dec 2004) - pdf
"Exclusion, humiliation, gossiping, name-calling, and cutthroat alliances - we can't get enough! We panic when these behaviors are directed at our own children and we express outrage when the consequences turn deadly, but over the past few years we, the adults, have turned cruelty into entertainment and sport." - Psychology Today Blog (Oct 2010)
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Individualism, Consumerism, and Aggression
"He concluded that people's views about the legitimacy of government and how much they identify with their fellow citizens play a major role in how often they kill each other -- much more so than the usual theories revolving around guns, poverty, drugs, race, or a permissive justice system." - Science Daily (Dec 2009)
"Hall said: “Britain and the US have the worst violent crime rates of the industrialised west – far worse than Western continental Europe – because we have the most competitive, individualist culture and the least developed sense of solidarity and common fate. In addition, consumer culture instils in so many individuals from an early age that their identities are incomplete without the status symbols carried by consumer goods, which of course makes crimes an attractive option for those who simply cannot afford to buy these goods.’’" - Science Daily (Sept 2009)
"When journalist Eric Weiner traveled the world to discover what made some countries happier places than others, he found one primary common denominator among the happiest. The essential ingredient was trust. The happiest countries are those in which people feel they can trust their government, trust social institutions, and trust their neighbors..." - Psychology Today (May 2011)
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"The only people who dispute the connection between smoking and cancer are people in the tobacco industry. And the only people who dispute the TV and violence connection are people in the entertainment industry."
- TV researcher Dr. Leonard Eron of the University of Michigan
"The real impact is not so much that violent images create violent behavior, but that they create an atmosphere of disrespect. The kid who sees a violent movie and imitates what he sees is very unusual, but we're seeing pushing, shoving, and hitting among children occurring with increasing frequency. It's a subtle shift, from 'Have a nice day' to 'Make my day.'"
- Dr. David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, on the consequences of media violence.
"Klebold and Harris do not seem to have been inspired by Hitler, as early theories in the press suggested, but by a desire to see their stories told in a Hollywood movie."
-The Washington Times on the motivation for the Columbine killers.
"I think the thing that comes across so often to our young people is the idea that if someone disrespects you, violence is the best solution. By the time you're 21, 22 years old, you've probably seen between 20,000 and 30,000 people blown away on your TV set…. At some point, the tide needs to turn a little bit."
- Tom Osborne, former head coach of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers
"The evidence shows that consistent exposure to stories and scenes of violence and terror can mobilize aggressive tendencies, desensitize some and isolate others, intimidate many and trigger violent action in a few."
-George Gerbner, Violence and Terror in the Mass Media, reprinted in the Vancouver Sun.
Quotes from parentstv.org
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Assorted
AAP Statement on Media Violence
Peaceful Schools Project Tackles Bullies
Stores renting "death videos" to minors
Killology
Watching Violent TV May Cost Kids Friends - Washington Post (April 2006)
Collective Efficacy and crime abatement - Can Block Clubs Block Despair?
Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie & Video Game Violence
Do chimpanzees in the wild want to kill others? Is murder common among wild chimpanzees?
Honour Killing in the South
"According to a new study by the Josephson Institute of Ethics (the largest ever undertaken of the attitudes and conduct of high school students), half of all high school students (50 percent) admit they bullied someone in the past year, and nearly half (47 percent) say they were bullied, teased, or taunted in a way that seriously upset them in the past year. The study reports the responses from 43,321 high school students. The margin of error is less than one percent." Josephson Institute (2010)
"I can’t tell you the number of times I have been approached by TV producers and news media with offers of big money for my vault of crime scene photos and videos. Some have offered to make me famous if I just handed over my most horrible cases. I have been offered my own television series many times, and I have always come to the conclusion that such a thing would be wrong. The victims whose cases I have had the honor to work on are human beings, not bloody paintings for deviant voyeurs. They were daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, and spouses when they were cruelly taken. Yet they are not viewed that way. Their deaths are lusted after by an entire industry that descends like locusts when the death is particularly awful. Not only did the killers see these precious humans as objects, but much of the media and the entertainment industry look at them as nothing but dollar signs as well." - Psychology Today (April 2012)
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