Just add alcohol - and expect trouble

By Andrew Stone and Jan Corbett

When Dunedin researchers asked people about their experiences with violence, most of those who committed serious assaults admitted being in various stages of intoxication.

While police say half of all those they arrest are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, no one can say for sure that they would not have lashed out if sober.

All the international research, however, points to a strong link between alcohol and violence.

In 1990, the British Home Office declared that the growth in beer consumption was the single most important factor in explaining growth in violent crime. It also found that violent crime rose in times of prosperity, largely because young men had more money to spend on alcohol.

The Scandinavians found that with every one-litre change in alcohol consumption, there would be a 2 to 10 per cent change in recorded violent crime.

As anyone who cannot remember who told the taxi driver their home address last night knows, alcohol clouds one's judgment, dissolves one's inhibitions and, for men especially, can make one feel more powerful.

But, as with all the ingredients that create violence, alcohol does not act alone.

Professor Tim Stockwell, director of Western Australia's National Centre for Research into the Prevention of Drug Abuse, points to several other factors.

"One is that it is mostly young males who engage in both violence and heavy drinking, and that licensed premises are public places where groups of young males come into contact and into competition with each other.

"Intoxication is not always a feature of such violence. However, the literature is clear that intoxication does increase the risk - provided there already exists the possibility of violence [or] some degree of conflict.

"One theory is that intoxication impairs the cognitive skills needed to resolve conflicts through verbal means."

So for violence to break out in pubs, several factors other than liquor need to be present.

Violent pubs are usually crowded pubs with poor layout, meaning people knock into one another trying to get near the bar. Not enough seats, not enough light, not enough food and not enough cleaning all contribute to an atmosphere likely to ignite violence.

Finally, throw in a couple of aggressive bouncers and, pow, you've got a fight on your hands.

While Professor Stockwell is clear that alcohol unleashes aggression rather than creating it, not all alcohol-induced violence happens in and around pubs.

Some hold on to their aggression until they get home.