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Abstract
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To characterize the relationship between alcohol use and homicide victimization, we used data from the Los Angeles City Police Department and the Los Angeles Medical Examiner's Office to study 4,950 victims of criminal homicides in Los Angeles in the period 1970-79. Alcohol was detected in the blood of 1,883 (46 per cent) of the 4,092 victims who were tested. In 30 per cent of those tested, the blood alcohol level was greater than or equal to 100 mg/100 ml, the level of legal intoxication in most states. Blood alcohol was present most commonly in victims who were male, young, and Latino, categories where rates have been increasing at an alarming pace. Alcohol was also detected most commonly in victims killed during weekends, when homicides occurred in bars or restaurants, when homicides resulted from physical fights or verbal arguments, when victims were friends or acquaintances of offenders, and when homicides resulted from stabbings. The evidence for alcohol use by homicide victims focuses attention on the need for controlled epidemiologic studies of the role played by alcohol as a risk factor in homicide and on the importance of considering situational variables in developing approaches to homicide prevention.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this study by Goodman et al. was to examine the relationship between alcohol use and homicide victimization.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors employed a quasi-experimental secondary analysis of data for a non-probability sample of 4,092 (82.7%) of the 4,950 homicide victims killed in Los Angeles between 1970 and 1979. Police files provided demographic characteristics of the victims and of the assailants, as well as details about the homicides themselves, including day of the week on which the event occurred, location of the attack, nature of the circumstances which led to the homicide, the relationship between the people involved in the event and the weapon or method used to commit the homicide. Criminal homicide was defined as death caused by injuries that were illegally inflicted by a person with intent to injure or kill. Files from the Los Angeles Medical Examiner-Coroner were examined to ascertain blood alcohol levels in the victims. Analysis involved examination of frequencies.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors began by examining homicide rates for different groups over the ten-year period. The homicide rate increased from 12.5 per 100,000 population in 1970 to 23.0 per 100,000 in 1979, with rates being higher for males (27.0), people aged 25 to 34 years (26.9), and Blacks (45.6). Blood sample testing revealed that alcohol was present in the blood of 46% of the victims, with 30% of these victims showing levels above the level of legal intoxication in most states. Male victims were twice as likely to have detectable levels of alcohol in their blood as were female victims (51.3% vs. 25.8%), and levels over the legal limit were found in 34.1% of the males and 14.8% of the females. Latino victims (including Latin American peoples, Mexican-Americans and Central American immigrants) had the highest proportions of detectable alcohol (57%), followed by Blacks (47.7) and then Whites (34.6%). 38.2% of Latinos, 31.8% of Blacks and 20.5% of Whites had levels over the legal level of intoxication. Of the 25 to 34 year olds, over one-half had alcohol in their blood at the time of death, with more than one-third being over the legal limit. Alcohol was found in victims' blood more often on weekends than midweek, with Saturday having the highest frequency of alcohol use by victims. No temporal trends were found when examining occurrence by month or year. Alcohol use was found to be greatest in those killed in bars or restaurants, with 75.1% of these victims showing alcohol intake before death. When the homicide was preceded by a physical fight, alcohol was present in 67.9% of victims; this figure fell to 55.0% of victims following a verbal argument and 48.3% of those killed in gang-related homicides. The likelihood of the victim being intoxicated was found to be greatest when the offender was a friend, an acquaintance or a spouse, and alcohol use was most evident in victims killed by cutting instruments. The authors concluded that consumption of alcohol was common in homicide victims in Los Angeles from 1970 to 1979. They further suggested that, due to the fact that duration between time of injury and death was not specified as a way to exclude victims, the results most likely underestimate the actual proportion of victims who had alcohol in their systems at the time of the incident. The authors concluded that their descriptive study of the relationship between alcohol consumption and homicide victimization could not, on its own, establish a definite causal link between alcohol and subsequent death.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors suggested that methodological flaws in current research should be addressed in future studies in this area. The use of control groups to measure blood alcohol levels in people who were not victims of homicide was stressed as an important methodological improvement, as was the development of a method for determining alcohol use patterns - whether the victim was a chronic or a short-time user of alcohol. Other measurement problems noted included the various effects that different alcoholic drinks might produce and the differences in responses to alcohol that are evident in different people. The authors concluded that the role of alcohol must be taken into account when addressing issues concerning the development of prevention planning in the areas of homicide and interpersonal violence in general.
EVALUATION:
The authors present an interesting and informative exploration of the relationship between consumption of alcohol and risk of homicide victimization. The good sample size and the representative nature of the sample, combined with a data collection period of ten years, allows for good generalizability of the findings, which, while clearly presented, could have been discussed in more detail. While a more thorough discussion of the implications of the findings, such as those for violence prevention policy and planning, would have been useful, the study nonetheless should be seen as an important foundation upon which to build further research and upon which to base current and future intervention policies. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - 1970s
KW - California
KW - Alcohol Use Effects
KW - Alcohol Related Victimization
KW - Substance Use Effects
KW - Substance Use-Victimization Co-Occurence
KW - Homicide Causes
KW - Homicide Victim
KW - Racial Differences
KW - Gender Differences
KW - Adult Victim
KW - Adult Substance Use
KW - Victim Substance Use
KW - Victimization Causes
KW - Violence Causes |