New Report Calls for Controlling Alcohol to Control Crime
Evidence demonstrates that targeting alcohol can yield major reductions in crime
NEW YORK, NY – Memorial Day Weekend is often deadly in cities across the U.S., kicking off what tends to be a particularly violent season of the year. But perhaps the crime spikes of the summer months, with their booze-fueled holidays and barbeques, needn’t be so large. In a new report for the Manhattan Institute, fellows Connor Harris and Charles Fain Lehman explore the relationship between alcohol and crime, elucidating an angle of the broader public-safety conversation that goes too often ignored.
As the report makes clear, a large body of evidence demonstrates that excessive alcohol availability and consumption promote many types of crime, including assaults and public disorder; in fact, one in three prisoners in America was drinking at the time of his or her offense. Harris and Lehman argue that the enormous cost these crimes impose on society—at least $85 billion in 2020 alone—can and should be offset with smart, focused alcohol enforcement.
As experience in the U.S. and abroad demonstrates, reengineering policies that target alcohol production, distribution, and consumption can yield a reduction in crime—one which can’t come soon enough as cities continue to face waves of violent crime. To that end, the report makes suggestions for evidence-based interventions that reduce crime by reducing alcohol problems. These strategies include:
- Limiting access to alcohol through restrictions on time or place of distribution, particularly at the local level;
- raising liquor taxes in line with inflation, and offsetting with other tax reductions;
- Increasing sanctions for alcohol-involved crime, including but not limited to DUI; and
- Increasing levels of alcohol-related enforcement, which declined in recent decades.
All these strategies, the authors argue, can be focused primarily on the people and places for whom and which drinking is most problematic, cutting crime while leaving the large majority of law-abiding Americans to celebrate responsibly.
Are you interested in supporting the Manhattan Institute’s public-interest research and journalism? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and its scholars’ work are fully tax-deductible as provided by law (EIN #13-2912529).