We all know alcohol can fuel bad behaviour but researchers at UNBC have found that, once young adults get legal access to booze, their crime rates go up significantly.
“In comparison to young people slightly younger than the drinking had significant and immediate increases in crime of about 7-10%,” says Dr. Russ Callaghan who led the Northern Medical Program research team. “In particular, we see jumps in violent crimes for both males and females.”
Incidences of violent crime increased by more than 7% for young men and nearly 15% for young women.
Callaghan says many people underestimate the harms that alcohol causes.
“When I’m in class and I talk to my students and I ask them ‘Does the drinking age have an impact on harms in society?’ about 50% of them will say, ‘No, it won’t have any harms.’ But what we see with this research is that, immediately after the drinking age, young people experience a tremendous amount of alcohol related harms.”
He thinks it might be time to reconsider the minimum legal drinking age.
“The key question is whether the legislation can reduce crime among people who are still under drinking age restrictions. I think it’s also a question about how we want to attenuate some of these crime related harms among young people.”
Recently the Canadian Public Health Association recommended that the legal drinking age be raised to 21. In most of Canada, the legal drinking age is 19. Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec have a slightly lower legal drinking age of 18.
But raising the legal drinking age won’t necessarily reduce the crime increase to zero. While emphasizing that the comparison is imperfect, due to differing legal systems and procedures, Callaghan says that American states with a legal drinking age of 21 still see a rise in crimes committed by young people newly able to buy booze.
His research is part of a larger series of studies investigating the impact of legislation on alcohol related harms. Callahan is examining binge drinking in young people, alcohol-related injuries requiring hospital-based treatment and patterns of criminal victimization among youth.
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