Alcohol Outlet Policies to Reduce Crime & Improve Student Safety

The association between alcohol outlets and individual-level behavior and community-level problems has been well studied. Several studies have found that alcohol outlets are magnets for crime and incivility and are associated with increased consumption and availability of alcohol. Alcohol outlets are promising locations for investigation as they are salient targets for environmental interventions through zoning and land use policies. The investigation explored the use of legislative policies that restricted hours of operation of twenty-seven alcohol outlets in eight census tracts on violent crime and student reports of safety on the way to and from school. Alcohol outlet location was obtained from the Board of Liquor License Commissioners for Baltimore City. Violent crime data (i.e. homicide, aggravated assaults, robberies, and rape) were obtained from the Baltimore City Police Department and student reports of safety were obtained from a citywide survey of students, parents, and teachers administered by Baltimore City Public Schools. The alcohol outlet and violent crime data were geocoded in ArcMap 10.1. Network buffers were placed around alcohol outlets to determine the count of violent crimes within 600 feet (1-2 blocks) of the alcohol outlet one year before and one year after the bill took effect. There was not a significant decrease in mean count of violent crime one year after initiation of legislation (p = 0.11); however, there was a significant decrease in aggravated assaults (the most common violent crime) one year after the bill took effect (p = 0.01). The study also examined the change in violent crime in the twenty-nine Census Block Groups (CBG) for the area impacted by the legislation. There were no significant changes in mean count of violent crime (p = 0.80) or aggravated assaults (p = 0.86) during the same time period among CBGs. The results show a significant decrease in aggravated assaults following a policy intervention that restricted the hours of alcohol outlets. This presentation will also explore subsequent trend analyses, discuss other proposed policy interventions, and discuss implications for future policy interventions.