"Oberon" > wrote in message
news
> <http://society.guardian.co.uk/drugsandalcohol/story/0,8150,1519325,00.html>
>
> Report links crime and binge drinking
>
> Katherine Demopoulos
> Friday July 1, 2005
>
> Nearly half of young adults are binge drinkers who are
> responsible for a disproportionate number of crimes, according
> to new figures from the Home Office.
>
> The latest findings, from the 2003 Offending, Crime and Justice
> survey identifies 44% of young adults aged 18 to 24 as binge
> drinkers, and says this age group has the highest number of
> heavy drinkers.
>
> Warning that there is no universally agreed definition of binge
> drinking, the Home Office used self-reported drunkenness to
> reach its own definition. According to the Home Office, binge
> drinkers are "those who drink at least once a month and reported
> feeling very drunk at least once a month in the past 12 months."
>
> Despite the ongoing media interest in excessive drinking in
> young females, a higher proportion of men (49%) than women (39%)
> are binge drinkers.
>
> There are also higher levels of offending among binge drinkers,
> but the researchers caution that "this is not to say that binge
> drinking causes crime or that all binge drinkers take part in
> criminal or disorderly behaviour."
>
> The data shows that young adult binge drinkers account for just
> 6%of the adult sample, but they committed 30% of all crimes and
> 24% of violent offences.
>
> Young male drinkers are more than twice as likely to commit a
> violent offence as other young male regular drinkers, and 58% of
> drug-dealing offences are committed by 18 to 24-year-old binge
> drinkers.
>
> Home Office spokeswoman Jane Parsons commented: "The government
> recognises that alcohol-related violence is too high. Hence the
> provisions in the violent crime bill."
>
> Richard Garside, the director of the Crime and Society
> Foundation at King's College London, added that while the data
> was interesting, he didn't consider it "the most convincing or
> robust data the Home Office has ever put out."
>
> His initial criticism was the definition of binge drinking
> itself. "It's interesting that they've chosen to pick such a
> broad definition. I think on that basis most of Fleet Street
> would fall into the category of binge drinking. There are
> questions here of how useful that definition is."
>
> "They haven't used the units per week consumption, which is more
> useful," he said, adding, however, that people often underreport
> the units they consume.
>
> Mr Garside also believes there is a misguided tendency to
> presume the link between alcohol and offence, and he stressed
> that nothing is proven by the current data. "You'll pick up
> people who've committed a crime, and because they've got alcohol
> in their blood they put two and two together and get five. This
> survey doesn't actually prove alcohol causes more crime and
> disorder."
>
> Despite the tendency to presume a link between drinking and
> crime, the only offence where there is a really strong
> correlation is violence - in the form of young men and the
> traditional post-pub punch-up, Mr Garside said.
>
> The link with drug dealing is not unexpected, he said, but the
> alcohol is not necessarily a causal factor in the crime. "People
> who are often abusing drugs will often deal them. Classically
> you also might be drinking far too much. But because they've got
> such a broad definition you're scooping up a whole kind of
> individual and behaviours into one broad definition."
>
> He warned: "There are very different types of behaviours, which
> are often driven by very different things. Whether that means
> it's the alcohol that's driving them is a very different thing."
>
Regarding the last point:-
How you interpret data like this has to be done very carefully.
For example, where alcohol drinking and misbehaviour occur,
it is too easy to blame alcohol.
It might be that irresposible and lawless youth are just as likley
to commit violence as they are to overdrink, and the blame is
directly with them and the people who brought them up, rather
than the availability of alcohol.
I fear that a hysterical response would be to give in to pressure
to ban sales of alcohol, rather than to police, bring to justice to,
and punish offenders.

Anti-social and violent behaviour is a reflection of our society and
cannot be "cured" or simple solutions be found, since changes in
our culture tend to change by the generations rather than by the year.

I do think that they should be allowed a sip or two of some fine wines
as a comparison to the stuff that will be tasteless after the first six
cans.
:-)
(cross post addresses snipped)

--
Interested