NCJ Number
184044
Date Published
2000
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This paper reports on a study of the relationship between the price of alcoholic beverages and the incidence of criminal violence in various countries throughout the world.
Abstract
The positive association between alcoholic beverage consumption and violence is well documented, as is the negative relationship between the quantity of alcohol consumed and its price. These two relationships together form the principal hypothesis that increases in alcoholic beverage prices will directly decrease the incidence of criminal violence. The data for this study came from the 1989 and 1992 International Victimization Surveys. The sample used in the study consisted of approximately 50,000 respondents in 16 countries. The respondents were asked if they had been victims of three types of violent crimes in the past year: robbery, assault, and sexual assault (female respondents only). A reduced form model was estimated; the probability of being a victim of violent crime was determined by the price of alcohol, variables that described the area where the subject lived, and other socioeconomic characteristics of the respondent. Country fixed effects were also used in some models. Results show that higher alcoholic beverage prices led to lower incidences of all three types of violent crime in models in which country fixed effects were not included. Results from models that included country fixed effects were not reliable. 10 footnotes, 4 tables, and 34 references