NCJ Number
87750
Date Published
1981
Length
69 pages
Annotation
After reviewing existing theoretical knowledge of the relationship between alcohol use and crime, this essay presents some tentative ideas about an integration of theories on alcohol use and its effects and theories of crime.
Abstract
The two main sources of gaps in the theoretical knowledge of the relationship between alchohol use and crime are (1) the discrepancy between theories of criminal behavior and the theories of alcohol effects in both the acute and more chronic aspects and (2) the related empirical and methodological gap between the individual-level methods and models of experimental and clinical studies of the effects and meanings of alcohol use and the standard methods and models of epidemiological analyses of the relationship between alcohol use and criminal behavior. One central problem is how the findings and theories of different disciplines and problem areas of the same discipline and the findings from different types of samples in the same problem area fit into a general explanatory scheme. No one theory or model can explain the totality of the observed statistical associations between alcohol use and crime. Further, the existence and distribution of initial conditions for the applicability of any model or theory explaining part of the statistical association will have to be predicted or explained by other theories. In future theoretical developments, integration can be attained through joint analyses of theories on alcohol use and its concomitants and effects and theories of crime and deviance. These analyses would be both of a general nature and specific to different types of criminal behavior and would be designed to cut down the considerable indeterminacy between theories of alcohol use and theories of criminal behavior. Specific recommendations for future research are offered.