Trends in Alcohol use, Cocaine use, and Crime: 1989–1998

Abstract

The widespread belief that illicit drugs are closely associated with crime has contributed to America's “War on Drugs” and attendant increases in arrests, convictions, and prison populations. However, the links between alcohol and crime have received less attention from policy makers and the public despite consistent evidence that alcohol is more likely than other drugs to be associated with violence. This study explores the relationship between alcohol and cocaine use and crime from 1989–1998, based on findings from the Drug Use Forecasting/Arrestee Drug and Alcohol Monitoring Program and the Uniform Crime Reports Program. We examine correlations among cocaine use, alcohol use, property crime, and violent crime at the city level to determine if there is a consistent pattern across cities over time. The analyses show a wide variation across cities in the links between both alcohol and cocaine use and violent and property crime rates over the 10-year period. However, the association between the annual rates of alcohol use and violent crime is stronger than that of alcohol use and property crime. These associations for alcohol remain in multivariate analyses, including statistical controls for temporal autocorrelation, SES, and heroin use. Cocaine use, in contrast, is not closely associated with either property or violent crime rates in the multivariate analyses. The findings suggest that to reduce violent crime rates, policy makers need to focus on addressing the contribution of alcohol. Furthermore, given the variation found across sites, efforts to reduce the drug/alcohol-crime links need to be tailored to local patterns and problems.