Off-field Violence Growing NFL Trend

Book: 21 Percent Of Players Have Criminal Records

PITTSBURGH, Updated 4:34 p.m. EST February 2, 2000 -- A recent trend of National Football League players arrested for crimes ranging from homicide to drug-related incidents has shocked fans and damaged the league's reputation.

It was perhaps foretold in the 1998 book "Pros and Cons; The criminals who play in the NFL."

The book claimed that 21 percent of NFL players have committed serious crimes and that the league takes little note of the questionable backgrounds of its players.

Prior to Super Bowl XXXIV on Sunday, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said: "I think our track record is better than society at large."

On Monday, Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens became the second NFL player in a month charged with homicide.

"Pros and Cons" authors Jeff Benedict and Don Yaeger used public access records to examine the nearly 1,600 players on NFL rosters in 1996-97 and did extensive research on a sample of 509 players whose backgrounds they were able to check. Of that group, 109, or 21 percent, had criminal histories with 264 arrests for everything from homicide (2) to domestic violence (45).

"For a reliable sample, you generally look for 10 percent," said Benedict. "Opinion polls sample less than 1 percent. We sampled over 30 percent. If we had access to the records of the others, we're confident it would be higher."

"We didn't look at juvenile records, which is the most active crime age. If anything, we were conservative here."

That position was echoed by Carnegie Mellon University professor Alfred Blumstein, an expert on criminal statistics, who called the sample "reasonably representative of players in the NFL."

When the book was published, the league's defense then was to take offense.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello called the book an unfair attempt to stereotype and stigmatize athletes.

"There are approximately 2,500 players going through our league each year, and fortunately the overwhelming majority are good citizens, in part because we have taken a very aggressive approach to addressing issues of life skills and off-field conduct," he said.

Related Resources:

• NFL anti-violence policy
  
• Tagliabue concerned about violence
• Lewis charged in slayings

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