Alcohol-related crimes % of all crimes

Guide to finding crime statistics Methodology

Figure 5.1: Proportion of violent incidents where alcohol was likely to be a factor, by question, 2013/14 CSEW

If left untreated, alcoholism can lead to medical, financial, and even legal issues that can mess up your life (or that of a loved one). While most cases of intimate partner violence are often resolved before getting out of hand, they can lead to serious injuries and even death if allowed to escalate. Alcohol is the leading cause of intimate partner violence in most households across the country. Due to the severity of the risks, DUI attracts heavy fines and even lengthy jail time.

The CSEW is better for tracking long-term trends in violence with and without injury, theft offences, criminal damage, fraud and computer misuse, while police data are preferred for homicide, offences involving weapons, and robbery. The CSEW captures a broad range of victim-based crimes with the interview-administered questions giving headline estimates of CSEW crime, which includes theft, robbery, criminal damage, fraud, computer misuse, and violence with or without injury. Domestic abuse, sexual assault, stalking and harassment are not included in CSEW headline crime and are presented separately. As there is no specific offence of alcohol-related violence defined in law the aggregate police recorded crime data collection does not separately identify this type of crime. However, the Data Hub contains a field where police forces can identify a given set of aggravating factors related to an offence and one of these factors is whether the offence was ‘alcohol-related’.

2 Spatial units

• ARIMA modelling was used for 33% of the intervention time-series studies, with the most recent published in 2012 28.
• Communities across the nation are stepping up in an effort to reduce and prevent harmful alcohol-related criminal activities.
• In YE September 2024, 9.0% of people aged 16 years and over reported experiencing harassment.
• Hierarchical models (e.g., GLMM, GAM, and Bayesian SVCP) were better suited for estimation when addressing the complex framework of alcohol-crime studies incorporating data from multiple regions and time-periods.
• Alcohol is the leading cause of intimate partner violence in most households across the country.

Similar analysis of the Data Hub shows that 21% of recorded public order offences were flagged as alcohol-related. Bayesian estimation also provided flexible inference methods for modelling hierarchies 32,84 space 31,35, and space-time 30,85,86 dynamics. In summary, people consume alcohol for the pleasure it brings them, but alcohol also brings problems for drinkers and for society generally. The papers in this issue examine both the extent that alcohol is linked to the problem of violence as well as the factors that can modify this link, including preventive interventions aimed at reducing alcohol-related violence.

• Motorists that insist on driving while intoxicated not only put their lives at risk but also those of other innocent road users.
• Offenses range from minor to serious and include property crime, public-order offenses, driving while intoxicated, assault and homicide.
• To reduce alcohol-related fatal crashes among youth, all states have adopted a minimum legal drinking age of 21.
• However, these methods lack tradition coefficient estimation, statistical significance testing, and limit the ability to study simultaneous effects on crime.
• Bank and credit account fraud increased by 15% to about 2.2 million incidents, and consumer and retail fraud increased by 26% to about 1 million incidents.
• The same factors that cause alcohol use to increase the likelihood of assault also come into play with intimate partner violence.

Robbery is an offence in which force, or the threat of force, is used either during or immediately before a theft or attempted theft. Criminal damage results from any person who, without lawful excuse, destroys or damages any property belonging to another. This includes either intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged. Computer misuse is when fraudsters hack or use computer viruses or alcohol related crime statistics malware to disrupt services, obtain information illegally or extort individuals or organisations. Offences involving firearms cover various weapon types, from imitation firearms to handguns and shotguns. These offences decreased by 17% (to 5,372 offences) in year ending (YE) September 2024 compared with YE September 2023 (6,499 offences).

Links to NCBI Databases

Many alcohol policy levers (e.g. taxation, availability and advertising restrictions) are aimed at reducing consumption at the population level. The extent that these measures will affect violence, however, depends upon the relationship between population level consumption and violence. Previous research 3–5 suggests that per-capita alcohol consumption is an important determinant of homicide rates, with a stronger relationship in Northern Europe where drinking has tended to be more intoxication-oriented than in the rest of the continent 5. However, the pattern is not wholly consistent in that one study found a weaker relationship in some Eastern European countries despite their pattern of intoxication-oriented drinking 4, suggesting that other factors besides drinking pattern affect the relationship. Over the past 10 years, there has been a gradual decrease in the proportion of people experiencing violence with and without injury, theft, criminal damage, and domestic abuse. However, stalking has remained relatively flat and sexual assault has increased after previously decreasing from YE March 2005 to YE March 2014.

Annual estimates, England and Wales

Intoxication can make an individual loud, aggressive, belligerent, and disruptive. In order to limit damage, most jurisdictions want to limit alcohol use to designated areas like restaurants, bars, and homes. Public intoxication is often problematic to prove from a legal perspective, and many jurisdictions use this crime primarily to remove belligerent drunks from public places and sequester them in a jail cell until they sober up.

Alcohol-related crimes (% of all crimes)

‘Non alcohol-related violent incidents’ refer to those incidents where the victim perceived the offender(s) not to be under the influence of alcohol. The CSEW also collects information on the location of the incident, which can include locations in or around licensed premises, and on whether the victim was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident. Between 29%- 40% of reported sexual assaults are committed by perpetrators found to be under the influence of alcohol.

Alcohol consumption has a causal impact on more than 200 health conditions (diseases and injuries). This interactive chart shows the average share of household expenditure that is spent on alcohol. The charts show global consumption of spirits, which are distilled alcoholic drinks, including gin, rum, whisky, tequila, and vodka. Alcohol consumption – whilst a risk factor for a number of health outcomes – typically has the greatest negative impacts when consumed within heavy sessions. Again, the prevalence of drinking across North Africa and the Middle East is notably lower than elsewhere. Typically, 5 to 10 percent of adults across these regions drank in the preceding year, and in a number of countries, this was below 5 percent.

Estimates from the CSEW year ending (YE) September 2024 showed that 4.5% of people aged 16 years and over experienced domestic abuse in the last year. Crime against individuals and households has generally decreased over the last 10 years with some notable exceptions, such as sexual assault. The latest Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) estimated 9.5 million incidents of headline crime (which includes theft, robbery, criminal damage, fraud, computer misuse, and violence with or without injury) in the survey year ending (YE) September 2024. This was 12% higher than last year’s survey (8.5 million incidents in YE September 2023), mainly because of a 19% rise in fraud (to around 3.9 million incidents).

Overall statistical link between alcohol consumption and violence: Population level studies

As we see, following prohibition, levels of alcohol consumption returned to similar levels as in the pre-prohibition period. By default, the data for France is shown – in recent decades, here, the share of beer consumption increased to make up around a fifth of alcohol consumption in France. As the map shows, the average per capita alcohol consumption varies widely globally. Connecticut’s alcohol-related death rate is slightly below the national average. Arkansas has more alcohol-related deaths per capita than a majority of states and a higher rate of underage drinking. If you’re ready to quit drinking and put the negative impacts of alcohol abuse behind you, it’s time to seek professional care.

Then it passes into the bloodstream where it accumulates until it is metabolized by the liver. A person’s alcohol level is measured by the weight of the alcohol in a certain volume of blood. At a BAC of .08 grams of alcohol per deciliter (g/dL) of blood, crash risk increases exponentially. Because of this risk, it’s illegal in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to drive with a BAC of .08 or higher, except in Utah where the BAC limit is .05. Nearly 10,000 people are killed annually on U.S. roadways due to alcohol-related accidents.