The Role of Alcohol Policies in Preventing Intimate Partner Violence: A Review of the Literature

Objective

This article summarizes existing research on the relationship between alcohol policies and intimate partner violence (IPV). Because alcohol represents an important risk factor for IPV, interventions and policies aimed at decreasing problem drinking may also lead to reductions in IPV.

Method

Electronic databases were searched to identify relevant peer-reviewed journal articles on alcohol policies and IPV, as well as reference sections of appropriate articles. Only policies that have been studied specifically for impact on IPV were included.

Results

Three alcohol policy areas (outlet density, hours and days of sale, pricing/taxation) had been studied in relation to IPV outcomes. Research on outlet density had the most consistent findings, with most studies indicating that higher densities of alcohol outlets are associated with higher rates of IPV. Fewer studies had been conducted on pricing policies and policies restricting hours/days of sale, with most studies suggesting no impact on IPV rates.

Conclusions

Higher density of alcohol outlets appears to be associated with greater rates of IPV. However, there is limited evidence suggesting that alcohol pricing policies and restrictions on hours/days of sale are associated with IPV outcomes. Knowledge about the impact of alcohol-related policies on IPV and violence in general is limited by several significant research gaps. Additional research is needed to assess the impact of alcohol policies on IPV and other forms of violence.

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/i1pHB6

By:  Megan C. Kearns, PhD, Dennis E. Reidy, PhD, and Linda Anne Valle, PhD

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Violence Prevention

Corresponding Author: Megan Kearns, Division of Violence Prevention, Centers for Disease Control, 4770 Buford Highway NE, MS F-64, Atlanta, GA 30341, Phone: 770-488-1230, Email: vog.cdc@8itw

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Mixing Drink and Drugs: ‘Underclass’ Politics, the Recovery Agenda and the Partial Convergence of English Alcohol and Drugs Policy

Highlights

• The criminal law upholds a ‘great regulatory divide’ separating the licit trade in alcohol from the illicit trade in substances classified as either class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. This article, however, makes explicit comparison of recent policy developments used to govern alcohol and illicit drugs in England.
• Consideration of the idea of a convergence between policies governing alcohol and illicit drugs in England through the lens of the recovery agenda.
• Analysing the relevance of Berridge's long term historical argument to policies enacted by UK governments over the last 20 years, which pays specific attention to the re-emergence of abstinence in both alcohol and drugs policy.
• Examining whether the relevant policies of the New Labour Government (1997-2010) and the Coalition Government (2010-2015) to question whether the dividing line of the criminal law necessarily means that all public policies relating to alcohol are distinct in form and unrelated in practice from those which affect illicit drugs.

Abstract

Alcohol policy and illicit drugs policy are typically presented as separate and different in academic discussion. This is understandable, to a degree, as the criminal law upholds a ‘great regulatory divide’ ( Seddon, 2010 : 56) separating the licit trade in alcohol from the illicit trade in substances classified as either class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. 

This paper takes a different stance. In doing so, it draws upon Berridge's (2013) argument that policies governing various psychoactive substances have been converging since the mid-twentieth century and seeks to elaborate it using recent developments relating to the control and regulation of drugs and alcohol in the broader areas of criminal justice and welfare reform. Significantly, the article examines how recent policy directions relating to both drugs and alcohol in England have, under the aegis of the ‘recovery agenda’, been connected to a broader behavioural politics oriented towards the actions and lifestyles of an apparently problematic subgroup of the population or ‘underclass’. 

The paper thus concludes that, although the great regulatory divide remains intact, an underclass politics is contributing towards the greater alignment of illicit drugs and alcohol policies, especially in regards to the respective significance of abstinence (or abstinence-based ‘recovery’).

Purchase full article at:   http://goo.gl/3UVMg3

By:  Mark Monaghan, Henry Yeomans

School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, UK

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