"I know murder is a bad thing to do to society, but it was something I needed to experience."
So said a 17-year-old boy in police custody in May 2000. The boy had stabbed to death a 64-year-old woman in Toyokawa, Aichi Prefecture. He has since been sent to a medical reformatory, but the case, like many around the world in recent years, stirred up debate over juvenile crime and its causes. Something had to be blamed, whether it was the collapse of the nuclear family or kids' immersion in ultra- violent video games.
No explanation of something as complex as human behavior will be straightforward, but a paper published today in Science demonstrates a convincing link between watching television in childhood and violent crime in later life.