Alcohol Consumption and Violent Offending: Findings From a Longitudinal Study on Korean Youth from Mid to Late Adolescence

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00938548231202800
• Author: Yeungjeom Lee,Stephanie M. Cardwell,Jihoon Kim
• Date: 01 November 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2023, Vol. 50, No. 11, November 2023, 1699 –1715.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548231202800

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

© 2023 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

1699

ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND VIOLENT

OFFENDING

Findings From a Longitudinal Study on Korean Youth

from Mid to Late Adolescence

YEUNGJEOM LEE

School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas

STEPHANIE M. CARDWELL

Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Texas at San Antonio

JIHOON KIM

Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Alabama

Although past research highlights a close relationship between alcohol and crime, its role as a static (i.e., stable) and dynamic

(i.e., changing) risk factor of violent delinquency has been less studied. Cross-lagged dynamic panel models were employed

to address this issue based on a longitudinal Korean adolescent sample. Despite the significant independent effects of baseline

individual differences in alcohol use, its impact on violence was no longer statistically significant when accounting for

within-individual changes in alcohol consumption. However, we also found interaction effects between baseline and within-

individual changes in alcohol consumption; youth who consume more alcohol at earlier ages and engage in more alcohol use

over time are more likely to engage in violence. Findings stress the importance of studying static and dynamic factors and

their interaction to provide a greater understanding of violent delinquency. Limitations and implications for policy and prac-

tices are discussed.

Keywords: alcohol use; stable risk factor; dynamic risk factor; violence

Although violent offending in and of itself is rare among young people, its occurrence

remains a major issue throughout many countries. A key area of focus among research-

ers who study violent offending is identifying factors that can increase or decrease the

likelihood of violent behavior, especially among adolescents. Mid to late adolescence is a

developmental period in which criminal behavior is at its highest (Moffitt, 1993), and

AUTHORS’ NOTE: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jihoon Kim, Department

of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Alabama, Box 870320, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0320;

e-mail: jkim218@ua.edu.

*Stephanie M. Cardwell is also affiliated to School of Social Science, University of Queensland.

1202800CJBXXX10.1177/00938548231202800Criminal Justice and BehaviorLee et al. / Alcohol Consumption and Violent Offending

research-article2023

1700 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR

identifying risk factors related to violence in this developmental period can be helpful for

developing prevention and intervention efforts geared toward reducing long-term criminal

justice system involvement (Loeber & Farrington, 1998). One such factor consistently

linked to violent offending among young people is alcohol consumption (Deutsch, 2021;

Felson et al., 2011, 2008; Fergusson et al., 1996; Haggård-Grann et al., 2006; Huang et al.,

2001; Kulis et al., 2019; MacLean & Moore, 2014; Resko et al., 2010; White et al., 2012).

Nationally representative data collected throughout multiple countries highlight that

alcohol use among young people is a public health issue worldwide. For example, cross-

cultural data from 15-year-olds in 24 Western countries indicate that the weighted average

of monthly alcohol use was 45.4% in 1998, 43.6% in 2002, and 37.2% in 2006 (Simons-

Morton et al., 2009). Similarly, in a systematic review of 41 studies from eight Asian coun-

tries, Jiang and colleagues (2018) found that the prevalence of alcohol consumption among

young people (ages 15 to 29) over the previous 30 days ranged between 4.2% and 49.3%.

Likewise, data from the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicate that just

over 400,000 young people aged 12 to 17 years reported alcohol use disorder in the United

States (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2022).

In the case of South Korea, the annual prevalence of alcohol use among the general ado-

lescent population was 36.6%, whereas 67.8% of justice-involved youth reported they

drank alcohol in the past year (Korean Government Youth Commission, 2006). Although

the overall alcohol consumption of youth has decreased in recent years, the onset age of first

alcohol use is younger than that in previous years in South Korea (Korean Government

Youth Commission, 2007). The prevalence of occasions of heavy drinking (i.e., five or

more drinks for men, three or more drinks for women in the past month) was reported by

over 50% of Korean adolescents (Heo, 2018). In addition, alcohol dependency among ado-

lescents has steadily increased (Heo, 2018). The monthly alcohol use among young people

between 15 and 18 years of age was 17 times greater than that among 12- to 14-year-olds

(Korean Government Youth Commission, 2007).

While past research denotes correlations between violence and alcohol consumption

among young people (Deutsch, 2021; Fagan, 1993; Felson et al., 2011, 2008; Fergusson

et al., 1996; Haggård-Grann et al., 2006; Huang et al., 2001; Kulis et al., 2019; MacLean

& Moore, 2014; Resko et al., 2010; White et al., 2012), there are certain limitations in

these studies. One such limitation lies in identifying the causal connections between alco-

hol use and violence (Fagan, 1993; Felson et al., 2011). Using longitudinal data from a

sample of Korean youth, we address these topics from mid to late adolescence while also

controlling for dynamically changing correlates related to the variables of interest.

Specifically, we studied the linkage between alcohol consumption and violent delin-

quency in the sample by considering alcohol use as static (measured as alcohol use at

baseline) and dynamic (measured as changes in alcohol use over time) factors. We further

examined the interaction effects between these two measures based on the notion of risk

state, encompassing both static and dynamic factors, and previous violence risk assess-

ment studies, suggesting the potential interplay between risk factors (Douglas & Skeem,

2005; Ward, 2016).

In our statistical models, we controlled for past violent delinquency throughout the study,

as it was a strong predictor of subsequent violence (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1987; Matsueda,

1986). We also measure earlier alcohol use and increases or decreases in alcohol consumption.