SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Video games linked with murders

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A UK sailor has been jailed for 25 years after a shooting spree inspired by a violent video game.

Able Seaman Ryan Donovan had been obsessed with the video game Grand Theft Auto – linked with murders in the US. After being disciplined for disobedience, Donovan told shipmates he was planning a killing frenzy based on the game. He later shot dead an officer and seriously wounded three others (The Guardian, 19/9/11).

Not long afterwards, UK and Swedish researchers identified evidence of “Game Transfer Phenomena”, where some gamers integrate video experiences into their real lives (Daily Mail, 21/9/11). The study involved 42 in-depth interviews with participants ages 15 to 21, all of whom were frequent video gamers.

Almost all had experienced some type of involuntary thoughts in relation to video games, and half sought to use something from a video game to resolve a real-life issue. [Read more…]

CEO of registered charity – Womens Refuge – criticises Judge’s decision

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Womens Refuge is a charity registered with the Charities Commission and receives considerable government financial assistance. Its Chief Executive, Heather Henare, has attacked a decision issued by a Judge in the Wellington District Court relating to a man charged with a “degrading” assault. She claims the decision “reeked of double standards”. 

A Te Papa manager has escaped conviction for a “degrading” assault on his pregnant former partner after claiming it would hamper his international travel for the museum.

Noel James Osborne, 47, is a collections manager of Maori artefacts. In a video on Te Papa’s website in which he presents the museum’s collection of taiaha, he says he is a carver.

Women’s Refuge chief executive Heather Henare said Osborne’s discharge without conviction reeked of double standards. “Effectively what this says is it is OK if you happen to be in a privileged position.”

Osborne, appearing in Wellington District Court yesterday, had previously pleaded guilty to common domestic assault.

Prosecutor Blair Piper described the attack as quite a degrading act. “It does have emotional ramifications beyond the physical. There’s simply no excuse for taking that action against a woman who was pregnant.”

But Osborne successfully argued that the effects of a conviction outweighed the gravity of the offending.

For more see:

 http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/5425894/Te-Papa-manager-avoids-assault-conviction

Nelson teens admit beating

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Two Nelson teenagers have admitted beating a 16-year old schoolmate in an hour long ordeal before ordering him to strip to his underpants and lie in a crucifixion position while they mocked him and took photographs.

The victim lost consciousness during the attack at a Nelson school last month, in which he was punched, kicked, stomped on and beaten with pieces of timber. The two youths admitted injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, aggravated robbery and kidnapping when they appeared in Nelson Youth Court on Friday. The court was told that the youths took the victim’s cashflow card and he offered to give them his PIN [card security] number in an attempt to placate threm. The two yoths will reappear in court on June 22.

Source Dominion Post June 13, 3011, p. A3

LA Zombie – Herald on Sunday reporter seeks responses

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Here is the email received by the Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc. (SPCS) from Herald on Sunday reporter Andre Hueber on Friday April 29, 2011 at 10.38 AM regarding LA Zombie, a film we were told was that was prevented from being screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in July 2010. The Festival organisers had proposed to screen it, but the necessary ‘exemption’ for screening an unclassified film was not granted in that instance (pers. comm. Paul Tenison, Acting Applications Manager, Classification Branch, Australian Attorney General’s Department).

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