RT Article
T1 The release of Grand Theft Auto V and registered juvenile crime in the Netherlands
JF European journal of criminology
VO 14
IS 6
SP 751
OP 765
A1 Beerthuizen, Marinus GCJ
A1 Weijters, Gijs
A1 Laan, A. M. van der
A2 Weijters, Gijs
A2 Laan, A. M. van der
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1580020763
AB Prior research suggests that playing videogames can have a voluntary incapacitating effect on criminal behaviour. The current study investigates whether this negative association between videogames in general and crime rates can also be found for the release of a single videogame – Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV) – and for registered juvenile crime in the Netherlands. A diminishing effect was modelled to estimate the active player base of GTAV (that is, the most players are active on and directly following release, with a decline in the weeks thereafter) and correlated with the number of registered offences in 2012–15 committed by males aged 12–18 and 18–25 years in a time series analysis. The effect of the release of GTAV was negatively associated with the number of registered offences in both age categories, while controlling for covariates (for example, day of the week). Implications are discussed.
K1 Grand Theft Auto V
K1 Juvenile crime
K1 Videogames
K1 Voluntary incapacitation
DO 10.1177/1477370817717070