NCJ Number
79407
Date Published
1980
Length
215 pages
Annotation
This report describes an agenda for future research that is intended to develop better understanding of the relationship between the consumption of beverage alcohol and criminal behavior. The agenda is based on an analysis of past work in the alcohol/crime area and from consultation with a number of experts.
Abstract
Research designs were developed to address the following five areas: cross-national and State comparisons of alcohol use and violent crime patterns, subcultural influences on the relationship of drinking and violence, the role of alcohol in marital violence, alcohol consumption and serious crime among young adult males, and the influence of situational factors in the alcohol/crime relationship. Each research design is accompanied by a short literature review and a supporting conceptual orientation. Discussions of theoretical and empirical issues for the alcohol/crime relationship generally are also discussed. Findings indicate that most past research on this relationship has fundamental methodological flaws, such as the failure to measure adequately the alcohol consumption variable. In any new research there is a special need to measure the major variables, alcohol use and assaultive behavior, in detail. Future research also needs to be guided by explicitly stated theoretical schemes from multiple substantive orientations. A phenomenological perspective should be integrated into future research since alcohol's behavioral effects are known to depend on a variety of individual and cultural attitudes, rules, and expectations, factors which represent a set of variables or a perspective that is important to new research. Chapter references, footnotes, illustrations, and a bibliography of over 600 citations are included. A summary of the results of a conference of experts on this topic is appended. (Author abstract modified)