Alcohol and violence: connections, evidence and possibilities for prevention

This article reviews a number of theoretical and substantive arguments and models concerning the link between alcohol and violent crime which have appeared in the research literature in the past decade. These arguments and models form a firm foundation for the expectation that alcohol plays a causal role in violent crime, and that interventions designed to reduce or eliminate this link between alcohol and violence have the potential to become effective violence prevention policies. Four studies on the relationship between alcohol and violence are summarized, including one in which a natural alcohol policy experiment is evaluated. Taken together, these studies provide substantial empirical evidence that alcohol policy can be an effective crime prevention tool.