NO NFL = MORE CRIME?

That is what Ray Lewis thinks.

The LB from the Baltimore Ravens predicts that with a lockout, crime will go up. His words were, "If we don't have a season -- watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up, if you take away our game."

Experts say he is wrong. Specifically, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's PolitiFact group accepted Lewis' invitation to do "research" on the topic, and contacted the Northeastern's Sport in Society Center. According to them, "there is very little evidence supporting Lewis' claim that crime will increase the longer the work stoppage lasts."

The AJC cited a similar crime study.

The Baltimore Sun also looked at crime in 1982 and found an increase during the strike in only one category: homicides.

The Sun tried some other methods to tackle Lewis' claim. The newspaper's Crime Beat blog looked at crime data last season when the Ravens had their bye (off) week. The Sun found there was slightly more crime during the bye week.

The Sun looked at crime in Baltimore the four weeks before the season started and the first four weeks of the season. There was the same number of crimes. The Sun also examined the crime rate there at the end of the Ravens' season and what happened afterward. What did it find? There was less crime after the season ended in early January.

The Sun stressed several times that its findings were unscientific.

Right, unscientific. Meaning they actually don't know the truth and Lewis could be right.

The AJC then went to look at increases in crime during bye weeks, assuming that the no football/higher crime equation would fit a much shorter time frame. No real evidence was presented that would lead in one direction or another.


Of course, bye weeks are not quite the same as a lockout. A lockout lasts much longer than a bye week.

And then there is this gem:

One criminologist we interviewed had a different take. Northeastern University professor James A. Fox heard Lewis' comments and did a study. He looked at key FBI data from the last three years available, 2006 through 2008, focusing on the week before the Super Bowl because there were no games that week and there was intense interest in football around that time of the year. Fox, who was referred to us by the FBI, found no increase in crime the week there was no football.

"I took the Ray Lewis  challenge and I don't see any evidence of [a crime increase]," said Fox, the author of several books on crime who also writes a crime and punishment blog for the Boston Globe.

Now, Dr. Fox is more of a news guy than he is a criminologist. This quote proves it. I mean he actually thinks the week before the Super Bowl is the same thing as a lockout?

That is, simply stated, incredibly stupid.

Personally, I don't know if Lewis is right, but his prediction makes perfect sense to this criminologist. The logic goes like this: People, especially men, watch football in part because of the violence. Watching violence and seeing others suffer from it lowers the likelihood that a person will himself become violent (probably especially when your team wins). Take away the football and you have people, especially men, acting out on violent impulses in the real world instead of sitting on the couch watching TV.

You would think the news media might make an effort to help the reader understand this argument before dismissing it.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Research-group-calls-out-Ray-Lewis-8217-lockou?urn=nfl-wp2710