I don't think the violence occurs because of what kids see in the media, even though there will always be examples of kids who seem to have copied something that they saw or heard about--those connections exist mostly because someone writing a newspaper article emphasized something that may not even have been there in the first place--

Even the "drug" connection to violent crime is a distortion--malt liquor is generally the drug of choice in the ghetto, and it is frequently connected to violence and crime of all sorts--most drug related arrests are for possession and occasionally sales, with no one getting hurt--even the drug related shootings often turn out to be arguments over money, after a night of drinking--

As a former Philly resident, I can tell you that, if you see a cop pull a car over, nine times out of ten, it is a car driven by a person of color, with occupants of color, so to speak--

I have seen Philly cops beating people of color bloody, and worse, it happens all the time, and though white yuppies and suburbanites don't believe that it happens, every black person knows that it does, and fears it--

Cable TV and video rentals are very popular in the poorer, ethnic urban areas, not because the residents hunger for violent entertainment, but because they stay inside a lot--

I think if you live in a rough world, you tend to to be less sqeamish about what you like to watch on TV--and maybe you wouldn't mind seeing a "bad" cop get splattered every once in a while, if it was done tastefully and contributed to the story line, and maybe you wouldn't be adverse to hearing a song about it every once in a while either--

Anyway, I think it wouldn't make much difference if all the Gangsta rappers shut up, and they stopped rerunning RoboCop--