Public Drinking and Violence: Not Just an Alcohol Problem Essay

The research article was published in Journal of Drug issue 22 in 1992. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach that uses words as the output and input of the research rather than focusing on numbers (Adlers and Clark, 2008). The writer also agrees with the notion that qualitative data have the ability to produce theories that accurately describe real-world issues and processes than do quantitative (Gary Fine and Kimberly Elsbacht, 2000). The researchers suggest that alcohol drinking is very much a part of the Australian culture, a routine activity for Australians. Research by Cohen and Felson (1975) linking routine daily activities with predatory crimes is made reference to by the researches. From this, the researchers state that assaults and homicides frequently involve alcohol in the offenders, victims or both. It is also noted that the researchers pointed to the issue that Australia was facing a hike in violence and made a statement that it was becoming a more violent and lawless country during that period of time. The question that the article wants to address, though, is not the established presence of alcohol intoxication in violent crime cases, but, rather, the researchers want to look into the environment that created the issue. By conducting observational research into pubs and clubs in Sydney, the study attempted to systematically examine the link between aspects of the environment of public drinking and the occurrence of violence. The research aimed to transcend the narrow debate on the effect of ethanol (the substance), by focusing on the total environment of drinking and its regulation (or lack of it) by management, police and public officials. The researchers established a theoretical framework by presenting several past research reports. In a study of serious assault in New South Wales by Robb (1988), the finding stated that 40% of them were nominated by police officers as involving alcohol. Moreover, assaults that come to police attention and are recorded by them frequently occur after midnight around pub closing times, and at least 20% take place in or around licensed premises. The researchers also mentioned a Sydney hospital survey claiming that in a year, many thousands of people, mostly young men, are injured sometimes quite seriously) as a result of assaults occurring in or around licensed premises (Cuthberth, 1990). The article presented a theory by McGregor suggesting that it is quite possible, for example, that male attitudes which legitimize the physical maltreatment of women, or environmental factors like crowding, discomfort, and aggressive bouncers in pubs and clubs, are the real cause of much alcohol related violence (McGregor, 1990). The researchers argued that the regulatory system was dragged down by the notion of the deserved misfortune of victims of pub violence and that this belief is partly responsible for the historic failure in Australia to recognize violence occurrence in, or around, licensed premises as a major societal problem, which has led to the lackluster of legislation and police regulation. This, in the end, has resulted in helping the entrenchment of negative environmental factors, making some establishments into something they dubbed and many more establishments violent on a less predictable basis. The researchers also cited two studies, one conducted in New Zealand and another in Vancouver as influential to their own work. The first study was conducted by Graves, Graves and Semu and Sam (1981) using records kept by security officers employed in twelve pubs in Auckland to examine the frequency and seriousness of pub violence there. The study found that Polynesian patrons drink more and are involved in more violence than European patrons. This was attributed to the former’s preference for drinking longer in larger groups and their tendency to be engaged in group activities rather than individual ones by the study. Thus, the study highlights the importance of patron mix, group sizes, and time spent drinking as variables. The second study by Graham et al (1980) was cited as especially valuable to the researchers as their research’s guide. The study was conducted in Vancouver and found several variables as being positively connected to the aggression; they include percentage of drunken patrons, percentage of American Indians, poor ventilation, the amount of sexual body contact, lack of cleanliness and hostile environment. The authors of the study stressed their view of the environment as an ecological system and implied that the overall effect of this ecology has more impact than the sum of the effects of individual variables. The researchers used the Vancouver study as their starting point for their own study. They used a qualitative method by relying more on unstructured observations on licensed premises, as these are the places where alcohol related aggression most likely will occur. To a lesser degree, they also used semi-structured interviews with some officials and security industry personnel for their study. The study aims to contrast between premises known to have many violence occurrences with the ones noted for their lack of them. Using this design, they hoped to explore the possible drinking settings that were associated with violence by observing any occurrence of violence, however small. The researchers identified 4 premises known for regular violence occurrences and 2 premises known for the lack of them on the basis of first-hand knowledge, police information and exploratory visits. Two observers visited those premises at least 5 times, each observation visit about 2 to 6 hours in duration. It is to be noted that the researchers sent an observation team to another 16 sites, at least once, making a total of 55 visits to 23 sites at 17 establishments. They stated that the total observation times they completed were 300 hours. In the results report, they observed 32 total assaults involving physical violence, excluding 9 rough ejections which were borderline assaults. The results amount to about 11 occurrences per one hundred hours of observation. This is much more than the 7. 4% showed in the Vancouver study. It is to be noted, though, that the researchers oversampled the violent premises and conducted many of the samplings late at night when violence was more likely to occur. Further result comparisons with the Vancouver study show that while the Vancouver study didn’t report any and serious physical injuries, the Sydney study claimed four and several occurrences were rated as physical by their observers. The results presented very interesting variables as the cause of violence occurrences. Presence of big males groups often spell trouble, while single males, groups of mixed males and females, and couples are less likely to be involved in a fight. The researchers also suggested that the boredom factor is one of the key variables in the cause of physical violence occurrence. Premises with entertainment like TVs, game machines and stage entertainment creates comfort levels that appease the patrons’ boredom level which resulted in less violence occurrence. The researchers also suggest that in live bands quality of music matters very much, and that small crowds of patrons entertained with bad quality music will more likely cause trouble than large crowds entertained by good quality music. It is to be noted that, despite all myths, rough pubs with rowdy crowds are not necessarily violent. The results also stressed high levels of drunkenness as a major issue in pubs, especially those caused by management styles encouraging such behaviour, along with the pubs’ staff behaviour, especially with the bouncers. Summarizing the results, the researchers attributed violence occurrences to interactions of several key variables. Some of them are groups of male strangers, high boredom, low comfort, high drunkenness and aggressive bouncers. The researchers pointed out that the NSW legislation bodies did not pay enough attention to the issue, and that there are major flaws in the NSW Liquor Act. They concluded that better regulation and legislation can help solve the problem. They cited Sherman et al (1989) suggesting that it is easier and more desirable to regulate the routine activities of the premises rather than trying to regulate the routine activities of the patrons. Jumping forward to the present day, the NSW Liquor Act 2007 addresses many points being brought up by this study. This includes the need and the enforcement of RSA certification to work in any premises that serve alcohol, fines to servers serving alcohol to intoxicated patrons, setting up 50 meters perimeter from the premises for ejected patrons, and mandating premises to provide free water and also to serve warm meals to help patrons deal with alcohol intoxication. Examining the Sydney study and its comparison with the Vancouver study, it might help for future studies to set up a standard for what constitute a brawl and serious physical injuries. Different observers will have different standards for these issues which might cause discrepancies, especially when studies are being compared with one another.