Summary
Declining rates of alcohol consumption may be linked to a corresponding decline in homicide rates in the US from 1934 to 1995. The sharp drop in homicides and other forms of violence in the US, especially during the 1990s, has attracted much research and speculation as to its causes. A statistical analysis of homicides and alcohol consumption suggested the strong possibility of a causal link between the two.
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Extract
Alcohol and homicide in the United States 1934-1995 - or one reason why U.S. rates of violence may be going down.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the last few years, a great deal of attention has been devoted to the apparent decline in rates of homicide and other kinds of violence in the United States. Commentators debate whether rates of violence are actually declining, and what are the reasons for this apparent decline. The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility that one reason for the apparent recent decline in homicide may be its relationship to the rate of alcohol consumption during this same time period. As there is a growing body of research that shows a significant relationship between alcohol and violence at different levels of aggregation, in different countries and sub-units of countries, among different types of people, and across time periods, we will also explore the homicide and alcohol relationship by race and by type of alcoholic beverage. There are also the beginnings of a theoretical body of knowledge that would explain why variations in alcohol consumption and availability should be considered part of the explanation for variations in the rate of homicide and other types of violence. These issues will be discussed in detail in this paper, and the results of a new multivariate time series analysis of homicide, alcohol consumption and other indicators for the U.S. between 1934 and 1995 will be presented. The importance of this evidence for violence prevention policy will be discussed as well. Part II proposes that historically, declining homicide rates follow decreases in alcohol consumption. Part III reviews some of the theoretical arguments that have been advanced to explain why alcohol would be a causal factor in homicide and other forms of violence, with references to a number of empirical studies that have found support for this idea. The paper then presents the results of a multivariate time series analysis of the data displayed in Figure 1, with controls for some factors represented in the major theoretical models of homicide in the literature. Finally, the implications of this analysis are discussed in terms of their importance for research on violence and for public policy designed to reduce rates of homicide and other violence in the United States. [Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] II. WHY ARE RATES OF HOMICIDE IN DECLINING IN THE U.S.? According to the U.S. Vital Statistics,l the overall rate of homicide in the U.S. has declined steadily in the 1990s. In 1991, the rate of homicides per 100,000 people was 10.5; by 1995, the last year of data available for this report, the overall rate was 8.0.(2) Indeed, media reports indicate that rates for 1996 and 1997 show further declines, with one major media outlet reporting recently that homicide rates are almost as low now as they were in 1970.3 The data given here...See the full content of this document
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