Alcohol and Violence

Social Context: The Violent Event

The characteristics of settings in which alcohol is consumed may help determine whether or not violence occurs. These situational factors may include, for example, where alcohol is consumed, with whom, at what time of day, and the relationship between those who are drinking. Similarly, one way to attempt to find out if alcohol and violence are actually associated is to determine if violent events in which alcohol is present are different on these and other characteristics from violent events in which alcohol is not present.

Much of the research focusing on how situational factors may moderate the association between alcohol and violence is atheoretical. Recent work, however, attempts to change this approach. William Pridemore and Krista Eckhardt, for example, used narrative data from court and police records of homicides in Russia to compare alcohol- and non-alcohol-related incidents on victim, offender, and event characteristics. The authors found consistent differences between alcohol- and non-alcohol-related homicides. Alcohol-related homicides were significantly more likely to occur at night and on weekends and to result from acute arguments; they were significantly less likely to occur between strangers, to be profit motivated or premeditated, and to be carried out to hide other crimes. On the other hand, there were no significant differences between the drinking and non-drinking samples for victim's gender, primary weapon used, or event location. The authors follow up their analysis by proposing a new typology of homicide events, grounded in their inductive approach, based on the presence of alcohol. The authors suggest, for example, that violent events in which alcohol is present are likely to differ from those in which alcohol is not present in predictable ways. They further argue that even when alcohol results in a violent event, the characteristics of the event may differ depending on whether it is the victim, offender, or both drinking. Whether or not the hypotheses generated from this new typology are supported by evidence from future studies, this work represents a move toward a more theoretically grounded approach when considering how the situational characteristics of the violent event may aid us in understanding the potential association between alcohol and violence.

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