"Dexter" Didn't Do It !

I am a fan of crime shows -- both fictional and real-life. You might think that after working in various types of law enforcement for more than a quarter of a century, I should have had enough of crime and want to avoid those types of TV shows and movies. But it didn't work that way with me. While I have no desire to commit any type of crime myself, I remain interested in the genre. All my experience has done is to let me laugh when a show does something that bares to no relation to reality.

Yesterday I was indulging in some true-crime shows on one of Discovery's channels, and a show came on about two killers -- one in Indiana and the other in Canada. The only thing the two killers really had in common was their affinity for a TV show on the Showtime channel -- Dexter. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, it's about a serial killer who kills other serial killers. And it's a pretty good show with a large fan base.

But the TV show I was watching took and giant leap and blamed the murders these two men committed on the TV show Dexter -- and they even had a psychiatrist (or psychologist -- I'm not sure which) that blamed the murders on the TV show. That's a ridiculous notion, and one that's been around for a long time. For years, people have been trying to blame violence on TV, movies, or even music -- and it's always been a silly notion.

Does anyone really believe these disturbed individuals would not have committed a murder if Dexter wasn't on TV? I don't. The truth is that if they didn't have Dexter to blame, it would have been another source. You could do away with television, movies, and music, and people would still find a reason to kill. You simply can't sanitize society enough to eliminate violence. They'd just then blame some fairy tale (some are fairly violent) or the Bible itself (a very violent book).

The truth is that as long as humans have been around there has been violence -- and disturbed individuals. That's just an uncomfortable fact of life. Dexter didn't do it -- and neither did any other TV show, movie, or song. And eliminating Dexter (or any other TV show, movie, song, or book) will do absolutely nothing to lower the crime rate.

There's only one person to blame for any crime -- the person who committed it. That may seem harsh, but it's the truth. That doesn't mean there is nothing we can do to reduce crime. We can institute better parenting, better education, better policing, and we can eliminate poverty and other childhood hardships. But still, the only person responsible for a crime is the person who committed it (because that person is the one who made the decision to commit a crime).

Dexter didn't do it!