Chapter eight

Public order and safety

H. Klingemann

The consequences of alcohol use for public order and safety are, like its other
social consequences, outcomes of a complex mix of pharmacological effects of
alcohol and various social processes. Few if any such consequences for public
order and safety will be found in all societies where alcohol is consumed. This is
amply borne out in the anthropological literature, which is rich in accounts
from pre-industrial soCieties of the most varied types of post-drinking behaviour.
Commonly also in many societies the extent of unruly and dangerous alcohol-
related behaviour varies over time. Such geographical, cultural and temporal
variations suggested to MacAndrew and Edgerton that all disorderly behaviour
after drinking was due to social definitions of drinking events as 'time out', as
periods of reprieve from the strictures of everyday sober life, and not to any
significant extent to pharmacological effects of alcohol [1].
In Western societies since the temperance days alcohol has been incriminated
as a major cause of disorderly (socially disruptive) behaviour and, in its
association with crimes of violence, the most serious threat to order and safety
[2]. Violent crime is only an extreme case, however. Analytically, socially
disruptive effects of alcohol may be placed on a continuum of deviant behaviour,
involving all forms of deviance, nuisance and threat to safety and the social and
physical environment, such as 'contribution of alcohol consumption to noise',
'loss of sleep of neighbours of bars', 'harassment in the streets and parks' and
'littering of beer cans in tourist centres'.
By deviating from behaviour that is socially approved, disorderly and
dangerous behaviour triggers responses from the formal and informal agents of
social control- the police, the employer, the welfare worker, the reference group
or the public in general. To measure and count social consequences in this
domain, it is useful to take as starting points the different social agents and

Harald Klingemann and Gerhard Gmel (eds.). Mapping the Social Consequences of Alcohol
Consumption. 113-132.
© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

H. Klingemann et al. (eds.), Mapping the Social Consequences of Alcohol Consumption

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2001
114 Public order and safety

sources of public reaction. Informal and formal social reactions vary, of course,
from one country, culture and social context to another. The cultural context
and its limits of tolerance partly determine what constitutes violation of public
order and its attribution to alcohol abuse. The cultural context is useful also for
disentangling the indirect effects and costs of social control from the direct
effects of the behaviour attributed to alcohol abuse.
Alcohol acts in several separate ways: in the event, in setting the stage for
events, in attracting individuals to high-risk social contexts and situations, and
in other ways. It acts pharmacologically in creating public disorder and
endangering safety, but it also raises issues by its symbolic significance and
visibility and by the reactions it elicits from authorities and the public.

THE ROLE OF ALCOHOL IN CRIME: POLICE AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE

SYSTEM AS GUARDIANS OF 'THE PUBLIC ORDER'

Without question alcohol plays a major role in crime, especially crimes of

violence. Rates of violent crime are directly related to level of alcohol consump-
tion: as consumption increases in a society, so too does the rate of violent crime.
Norstrom [3] calculated that changes in total alcohol consumption in Sweden
between 1956 and 1994 accounted for 47% of the changes in the country's
assault rate, and as much as 68% of the homicide rate. Countries vary greatly,
however, in the closeness of this relationship between total consumption and
crime, which indicates that drinking patterns and social factors not directly
related to level of consumption also playa part.
The category of assaults and homicide incidents is that with the highest level
of alcohol involvement, though countries vary widely in this regard. This
variation makes it difficult to determine the proportions of assaults and
homicides in which either the perpetrator or the victim, or both, had been
drinking. The following ranges are based on soundly designed and conducted
studies with relatively large samples: Sweden 75-85%, Norway 70-80%,
Finland 65-75°,.\), USA 55-65%, and Canada 35-45%. Part of the apparent
inter-country variation may be attributable to differences in the perception of
alcohol as a causal factor in violent crime and the associated care with which
the police or other authorities record its presence. The degree to which alcohol is
involved in rape or robbery has not been studied to the same extent, and studies
vary widely in their findings as to whether those who committed such crimes
were drinking at the time. For different violent crimes, studies have reported
ranges offrom l3% for sex offences to 87% for homicide [4, p. 9].
The law in Western countries does not, in general, specify intoxication as an
extenuating factor, but if the perpetrator, and especially if the victim also, was
under the influence of alcohol the courts in many countries are more likely to
treat homicide as manslaughter than as murder [5]. Survey research also shows
that the general public in many countries does not consider drunkenness a valid