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Teenager sexually assaulted women inspired by Grand Theft Auto
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by JeffHuang | November 6, 2008 at 11:21 am
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A teenager was sentenced to eight years in prison for "horrific" sex assaults inspired by Grand Theft Auto.
The government is under heavy pressure to ban these types of "obscene" games which have allegedly inspired sex attacks and murders.
Ryan Chinnery, 19, prowled the streets high on skunk searching for vulnerable women to act out sick fantasies he had learnt from Grand Theft Auto.
Four victims were subjected to degrading sex assaults after he spent hours playing the virtual reality game in which a character drives around on 'missions', including approaching prostitutes who can be beaten up.
This begs the question: Does violent video games really inspire these violent crimes or are they mutually exclusive and these are separate cases and not a societal problem. This will be a continuous debate with people arguing for the video games saying how these people that reenact video games scenarios are already problematic and video games should not be blamed for these crimes. Also some may say that these violent games may act as an outlet for some to do certain actions that they will not dare to do in real life and it can act as a stress relief of some sort.
However, the violent video game critics will present these cases of teenagers learning and imitating these acts. They will also say that these games conditions the teenager's brain to thinking that these actions are acceptable since they perform it over and over again in a virtual world.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (6)
at 12:25 on November 6th, 2008
This is terrible.
at 15:29 on November 6th, 2008
This is moronic. This boy obviously had a problem before this happened. So easy to blame it on a video game. This was a disturbed child from the beginning.
at 16:47 on November 6th, 2008
Didn't Law & Order do an episode about something like this?
at 17:01 on November 6th, 2008
I think it was Law and Order SVU
at 16:02 on November 8th, 2008
You don't sexually assault people in the Grand Theft Auto games. There's absolutely no connection between the crime and the game. The latest iteration of the GTA series has sold 11 million copies, if their were even the slightest connection being doing something in a game and repeating the action in real life things like sexual assault, battery, murder, car theft, etc. would have sky rocketed. That is just not the case. Crime had been on the decline for over a decade.
Also there is not a real debate over any connection to violent behavior and video games. Nearly every study on the subject has concluded that.
One more thing, quoting a large portion of a news story and then adding a couple pointless comments about it is not writing a news story, it's simply ensuring your comment is read first, before the rest of the comment section. Not specifically directed at this story as much as most of the stories on this site.
at 11:08 on November 20th, 2008
Yep, just another reason to blame a video game. I've played the game and certainly know game from reality. It's just another kid (and parents) not taking responsibility. And My_F is right there isn't 'sexual assault' on these games. Granted it is certainly for adults, but this kid is 19 and is considered an adult and should be punished like one that breaks the law.
I've watched the movie Heat, doesn't mean I want to go rob a bank. Although acting our A Clockwork Orange used to certainly be on my 'to do' list (key word - USED to) but that ended when I turned 18 ;)...