Alcohol and Violence

Robert Nash Parker is professor of sociology and director of the Presley Center for Crime and Justice Studies at the University of California, Riverside. For most of the last two decades, Parker’s research has been focused on the alcohol and violence relationship and on the development of and application to Social Science research of Geographic Information Systems and Geospatial Statistical Models. Kevin J. McCaffree is a doctoral student at the University of California Riverside. He has thus far co-published an extensive, cross-cultural review of the literature on alcohol and human experience, along with two articles, co-authored with Robert Nash Parker, that have appeared in the journal, Drug and Alcohol Review.

• List of FiguresList of TablesPreface and AcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: Alcohol and the risk of violent Victimization and InjuryChapter 2: Alcohol Availability and Violence among Mexican American YouthChapter 3: Sexual Violence, Alcohol, and AdvertisingChapter 4: Alcohol, Drugs, Victimization and Aggression: The Impact of a School based Mental Health Intervention on Adolescent Substance Use and Violent BehaviorChapter 5: Alcohol, Homicide, and Cultural Context: A Cross National Analysis of Gender Specific VictimizationChapter 6: The History, Logic and Importance of Environmental Crime PreventionChapter 7: The Impact of Raising the Minimum Drinking Age on Youth HomicideChapter 8: The Impact of Banning Alcohol on Criminal Assault in Barrow, AlaskaChapter 9: What Happens when Alcohol Outlet Density Decreases?Chapter 10: The Unintended Consequences of Alcohol Based Environmental Interventions on ViolenceChapter 11: ConclusionsReferencesFiguresTablesEndnotes

This is careful scholarship, a great book, and a fundamental contribution to the literature on alcohol and violence. Through wide ranging consideration of theory, sophisticated understanding of measurement and method, and recognition of the practical importance of harm reduction, Parker and McCaffree address a complex relationship often left to the periphery of criminology and sociology. The series of studies presented by the authors coalesces nicely to provide the reader with evidence about the alcohol-violence relationship and about the effects on violence of alcohol policy that cannot be ignored. From a school-based mental health intervention among adolescents, to raising the minimum drinking age, to an outright ban on alcohol in one town, the authors reveal the power of policy interventions to reduce alcohol-related aggression, violence, and other negative outcomes.