Alcohol and Crime - heck with banning smoking in bars, maybe ban beer?

[The Straight Story]

# Published studies suggest that as many as 86% of homicide offenders, 37% of assault offenders, 60% of sexual offenders, up to 57% of men and 27% of women involved in marital violence, and 13% of child abusers were drinking at the time of the offense.
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, October 1997

# Among spousal abuse victims, 75% of the incidents were reported to have involved an offender who had been drinking. By contrast, an estimated 31% of stranger victimizations in which the victim could determine the absence or the presence of alcohol were perceived to be alcohol-related.
- Dept of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2002

# 35% of violent victimizations involve the use of alcohol.
- US Dept of Justice, 2002

# Each year, an average of nearly 3 million victims of violence perceived the use of alcohol by their attacker.
- Dept of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2002

# In 1996, Alcohol use at the time of the offense was commonly found among those convicted of public-order crimes, a type of offense most highly represented among those on probation and in jail. Among violent offenders, 41% of probationers, 41% of those in local jails, 38% of those in State prisons, and 20% of those in Federal prisons were estimated to have been drinking when they committed the crime for which they were convicted
- Dept of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2002

# In 1999, a Johns Hopkins University study found that almost one-third of people who are murdered or die of non-traffic related injuries were legally drunk at the time of death.
- Drug strategies: Millennium Hangover: Keeping score on alcohol, 2002

# In many domestic violence cases, both the assailant and the victim have been drinking. Half of alcoholic women have been victims of domestic violence.
- Drug strategies: Millennium Hangover: Keeping score on alcohol, 2002

# Rates of male to female intimate violence are two to four times higher among men with alcohol problems than among men without alcohol problems. Female to male intimate violence is about two times more frequent in relationships where men have alcohol problems than in other relationships.
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism: Journal of Substance Abuse Caetano et al 2000

# In a study by UCLA, in violent acts involving adolescents, drugs and/or alcohol were frequently used by both the assailant (58% of the males and 55% of the females) and the victim (56% for the males and 66% for the females).
- Arch Pediatrics Adolescent Med 2002 Aug; 156(8): 831-5

# State child welfare records indicate that substance abuse is one of the top two problems exhibited by families in 81% of the reported child abuse cases.
- Connecticut Clearinghouse, The Relationship Between Parental Alcohol or other Drug Problems and Child Maltreatment, April 1999

# Alcohol abuse frequently plays a role in child abuse and neglect cases. Alcohol and other drug abuse by a parent or guardian is involved in 7 out of 10 cases of child abuse and neglect; 90 percent of child welfare professionals cite alcohol as the drug of choice in these cases.
- Drug strategies: Millennium Hangover: Keeping score on alcohol, 2002

# According to a 1993 study conducted by the Research Institute on Addictions, nearly nine in ten alcoholic women were physically or sexually abused as children.
- Drug strategies: Millennium Hangover 2002

# About 20% of suicide victims are alcoholic.
- National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 1993

# In 2000, approximately 3 million youths were at risk for suicide during the past year. Youths who reported past year alcohol use were twice as likely to attempt suicide.
- SAMSHA, NHSDA Report, July 2002


http://www.vpcla.org/factAlcohol.htm

Second hand smoke, it seems, causes many less problems than alcohol. 'Second hand drinking', as it were, is a huge problem across the board.

So now that we have dealt with smokers and how evil they are, and how much they drive up our health costs, should we now turn our attention to an even bigger issue??

Or maybe we should just leave people alone to live their lives and make their own choices. We don't want the religious folks giving us their morality, and frankly maybe most of us also don't want others giving us theirs.