April Communique From Executive Director, Sr. Pat Wolf

"According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, media violence can lead to aggressive behavior in children…violent video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive, very engrossing and require the player to identify with the aggressor."

Gary Brouse, Program Director
for ICCR's working group on Violence and the Militarization of Society

I want to share some recent events at ICCR with you, and to tell you about our newest initiative. Recently, I traveled to Australia to meet with the Christian Centre for Responsible Investment and to New Zealand to meet with the Council for Socially Responsible Investment. While I was there, I met with religious and secular investment groups from around the Pacific Rim. I was encouraged to learn that many investor organizations around the world are interested in adopting our principles of ethical investment. ICCR's record of enforcing ethical corporate conduct has made us a recognized leader in the socially responsible investment movement.

One of the reasons for our prominence in this movement is our targeted response to a wide range of important issues, and our insistence that both companies and whole industries operate under ethical principles. You may recall some of our campaigns, such as our work on environmental justice and our drive to halt global warming; our championing of safe working conditions and access to healthcare; and our commitment to ensuring human rights and opposing the militarization of society.

At the root of all of our campaigns is an opposition to the culture of carelessness, destruction and violence that threatens to overwhelm our society. As the testimony quoted above shows, the seeds of violent behavior are often sown early in the individual lifetime. In recent years, the entertainment industry, particularly the video game industry, has been reaping profits from the sale of violent imagery to children. By instilling violent attitudes in our young people, makers of violent imagery are threatening our future hopes for human rights, environmental justice and fair working conditions for all.

I am inviting you to join us in protecting children, the future of our world, from the culture of violence being marketed and sold to them by the video game industry.

The video game industry has not been held accountable for the economic, societal and human costs of instilling violent attitudes in children and young adults. Furthermore, the industry has shown few signs of voluntarily adopting policies that will ensure the health and safety of our children.

Although the industry has created its own regulatory body, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), the board is not independent. In fact, the very companies it is supposed to monitor provide the ESRB's funding.

As you can imagine, dependence on industry-provided funding seriously compromises the ESRB's ability to meaningfully regulate the industry. Their established rating system is a good place to start our critique. All games released by the video game industry receive one of the following ratings:

Sadly, the standards set up by the ESRB rating system are seldom applied:

· A recent study in the journal Medscape General Medicine (2004) found that even among games rated "T" for Teen, viewers witness an average of 122 on-screen deaths per hour, and 69 percent of the games surveyed either rewarded players for killing or required them to kill.

· In 2000, the Federal Trade Commission evaluated 118 electronic games with a Mature ("M") rating for violence. The FTC found that 83 out of 118 games (70%), explicitly targeted children under 17. The same study found that unaccompanied children between the ages of 13 and 16 were able to buy "M" rated games 85% of the time.

· Many popular "M" rated games, like Grand Theft Auto, or Postal 2, also contain racist and sexist imagery and direct violence disproportionately toward women and minority characters. Much of the action contained in these "M" rated games - the shooting and immolation of police officers, graphic depictions of blood, the specific targeting of women and minorities for death - can only be described as graphic violence, a term that the rating system reserves for "Adults Only" games.

On March 30, 2004, ICCR Program Director Gary Brouse and Sister Claire Regan, a member representative from the New York Sisters of Charity, testified before the New York City Council about the need for accountability regarding the sale of violent video games. Their testimonies added to the already substantial body of evidence on the importance of protecting children from violent imagery, and highlighted some of the difficulties that would-be industry regulators face.

Gary describes the video gaming industry this way:

"The only standard this industry has been using is 'will it sell?' After dialoguing with companies in the video game industry, our shareholders are discovering that a 'pass the buck' mentality exists.

One company may produce a game component but not sell the game. Another company licenses games but does not design the games. Others say, 'we only market the games but do not develop them'. They all claim little or no responsibility for violent video games that are sold to children.

Our attempt to find accountability in the video game industry and discover which CEO to hold accountable is proving to be a complex task."

The task is indeed complex, but Gary and the working group on violence are currently engrossed in developing a system of accountability for the industry.

You will be pleased to know that Gary, Sister Claire and the rest of the working group have already scheduled meetings with representatives from the interactive gaming industry - including Patricia Vance, the Executive Director of the ESRB - to ensure the ethical marketing of these products.

The working group has outlined the following goals to promote more ethical industry actions:

1. To supplement ESRB oversight of the video game producing industry with an independent task force on video game rating and content, to be composed of industry and non-industry representatives.

2. To eliminate the race and gender bias which is so prevalent in popular video games.

3. To create an industry-wide sense of responsibility for prohibiting the sale of violent games to children.

4. Involving game-producing companies in the education of the public about the dangers of early exposure to violent imagery.

5. Finally, to set new industry standards for success, creating ethical industry goals that go beyond a company's bottom line.

We are making progress every day. Already, after a meeting with Gary, the campaign against selling violent video games to children has been joined by the World Council of Churches as part of their Decade to Overcome Violence. And beyond simply motivating others to join this cause, ICCR has the potential to be uniquely effective in creating industry change as a result of our power as stockholders in many of the industry's leading game producers and retailers. But the research needs for this project are costly, as is the need to be able to meet with industry representatives at any time, and in any place, to push forward this regulation.

I am asking you to help us end the marketing of violence to children.

We have been fortunate to receive an unsolicited gift in the amount of $10,000 to further this incredibly important project. I believe that you, as one of our most trusted friends, can help us raise funds to equal this gift, and further the progress we have already made in prohibiting the sale of violent imagery to children.

I invite you to continue to explore our website to learn more about issues of violence and militarization. I also encourage you to look through the many other program areas and stockholder motions being addressed by our members.

All of the initiatives listed on our website, whether dealing with the environment, corporate governance, equality in the workplace or global access to healthcare, are motivated by a shared belief in the dignity of the human person and a reverence for life.

These are the very values threatened by selling violent and abusive attitudes to our children. Your gift to this effort will have an impact on all of our project areas well beyond our individual lifetimes.

I also want to remind you that your can now make contributions to ICCR on our website. For gifts of $100 or more, you will receive a subscription to the Corporate Examiner. You can email comments to our Director of Development at conyemelukwe@iccr.org, or to our Development Associate at mmccarthy@iccr.org.

Yours truly,

Patricia Wolf, RSM
Executive Director

P.S. And I want to remind you as well that you can plan to protect the world that future generations will inherit by naming ICCR as a beneficiary in your will. Please indicate your desire to join our Legacy Society by sending an email to our Development Associate at mmccarthy@iccr.org.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment and support!