Alcohol and Violent Crime Re-examined: Self-Reports from Two Sub-Groups of Scottish Male Prisoners

To re-examine the relationship between alcohol consumption and violent crime, 100 men from a Scottish prison were interviewed. Fifty respondents (the assailants) were convicted of violent offences and 50 (the control group) had been convicted of non-violent offences. Assailants were more likely to have consumed alcohol at the time of the offence than the controls. The discrepancies which were found support previous findings that alcohol consumption at the time of the offence is associated with violent crime. The relationship cannot, however, be explained simply by the‘intoxicating effect’of alcohol. A pattern of regular heavy drinking was evident amongst both sub-groups.