Richard Rhodes

Entertainment has always been targeted as a cause of youth violence, from the novels of Mark Twain in the 1800s to today’s Doom, a popular video game. Proponents claim that not only do juveniles reenact what they see on the television screen and the Internet, but they also become desensitized to graphic portrayals of brutality. Opponents argue that there is no direct correlation between artificial violence in the media and the violence committed by juveniles. In the following viewpoint, Richard Rhodes makes this argument. He claims that juveniles learn violent behavior from abusive family members or peers, not from cartoons or movies. Richard Rhodes is a self-described amateur criminologist and the author of Why They Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist.

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