Drug and Alcohol Dependence 167 (2016) 67–74

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Drug and Alcohol Dependence

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Full length article

Do drinking-age laws have an impact on crime? Evidence from

Canada, 2009–2013
Russell C. Callaghan a,b,c,∗ , Jodi M. Gatley a,b,c , Marcos Sanches d , Claire Benny e
a
Northern Medical Program, University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), 3333 University Way, Prince George, British Columbia, V2N 4Z9, Canada
b
Human Brain Laboratory, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), 33 Russell St., Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2S1, Canada
c
Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, 155 College St., Health Science Building, Toronto, Ontario, M5T 3M7, Canada
d
Biostatistical Consulting Unit, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), 33 Russell St., Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2S1, Canada
e
Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, British Columbia, V2N 4Z9,
Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Background: International debate is ongoing about the effectiveness of minimum legal drinking age
Received 12 November 2015 (MLDA) laws. In Canada, the MLDA is 18 years of age in Alberta, Manitoba and Québec, and 19 in the rest
Received in revised form 3 June 2016 of the country. Surprisingly few prior studies have examined the potential impacts of MLDA legislation
Accepted 24 July 2016
on crime, and the current study addresses this gap.
Available online 30 August 2016
Methods: Regression-discontinuity analyses of police-reported criminal incidents from the 2009–2013
Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey, Canada’s crime database.
Keywords:
Results: Nationally, in comparison to males slightly younger than the MLDA, those just older than the
Minimum legal drinking age legislation
Alcohol
MLDA had sharp increases in: all crimes, (7.6%; 95% CI = 3.7%–11%, P < 0.001); violent crimes, (7.4%; 95%
Crime CI = 0.2%–14.6%, P = 0.043); property crimes, (4.8%; 95% CI = 0.02%–9.5%, P = 0.049); and disorderly conduct,
(29.4%; 95% CI = 15.6%–43.3%, P < 0.001). Among females, national criminal incidents increased sharply
following the MLDA in: all crimes, (10.4%; 95% CI = 3.8%–17.0%, P = 0.002), violent crimes, (14.9%; 95%
CI = 6.4–23.2, P = 0.001); and disorderly conduct, (35.3%; 95% CI = 11.6–58.9, P = 0.004). Among both males
and females, there was no evidence of significant changes in cannabis- or narcotics-related crimes (quasi-
control outcomes) vis-à-vis the MLDA (P > 0.05).
Conclusion: Release from drinking-age laws appears to be associated with immediate increases in
population-level violent and nonviolent crimes among young people in Canada.
© 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Alcohol use is the leading contributor to the worldwide bur-
den of injury, disability, and mortality among individuals aged
10–24 years old (Gore et al., 2011). In efforts to reduce these
alcohol-related harms, many countries worldwide have imple-
mented minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) laws (International
Center for Alcohol Policies, 2015), which usually impose age-based
restrictions on the consumption, purchase, and possession of alco-
hol among young people. In Canada, the MLDA is 18 years of age in
Alberta, Manitoba and Québec, and 19 in the rest of the country.
International debate is ongoing about the effectiveness of
drinking-age laws (Giesbrecht et al., 2013; DeJong and Blanchette,
∗ Corresponding author at: Northern Medical Program, University of Northern
British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, British Columbia, V2N 4Z9,
Canada.
E-mail address: russ.callaghan@unbc.ca (R.C. Callaghan).
2014; Kypri et al., 2014; Pitts et al., 2014). Recently, the Canadian
Public Health Association (2011) has recommended increasing the
MLDA to 19 years of age across all provinces, and a recent Canadian
expert panel on alcohol policy has identified a national MLDA of 21
years as the ideal (Giesbrecht et al., 2013). Calls for increasing age-
based restrictions on alcohol use among young people run counter
to current, broader policy developments in some provinces towards
increased convenience of liquor access, greater privatization of
alcohol sales (away from a government monopoly model), and
economic gains (and taxation revenue) through increased alcohol
sales and profits (MADD Canada, 2014). In addition, some provin-
cial political parties have proposed recent platforms to lower the
status-quo legal drinking age (CBC News, 2013) or intentionally
have maintained the MLDA-18-years position (Owen, 2014).
Given that a large and long-standing body of work has demon-
strated a consistent association between alcohol consumption and
a broad range of crime (Joksch and Jones, 1993; Graham and West,
2001), it is striking that relatively few studies have addressed the
potential impact of drinking-age laws on criminal behavior among

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.07.023
0376-8716/© 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
68 R.C. Callaghan et al. / Drug and Alcohol Dependence 167 (2016) 67–74
young people, especially violence and other alcohol-related crimes
(Wagenaar and Toomey, 2002). Almost all the literature in this
area has focused on the impacts of the MLDA on traffic-related
crimes (e.g., alcohol-impaired driving; Wagenaar and Toomey,
2002; McCartt et al., 2010; Carpenter and Dobkin, 2015). At least in
our understanding, only four original studies (and one replication)
have addressed directly the relation between MLDA legislation
and non-traffic-related crimes (Smith and Burvill, 1987; Davis
and Reynolds, 1990; Joksch and Jones, 1993; Carpenter, 2005;
Carpenter and Dobkin, 2015), and only one of these (Carpenter and
Dobkin, 2015) can provide recent data. Using California arrest data
from 1976 to 2006 and a regression-discontinuity research design,
Carpenter and Dobkin (2015) found that in comparison to youth
slightly younger than the MLDA, those just older had sharp and sig-
nificant increases in assault, robbery, driving-related crimes, and a
range of nuisance crimes.
The remaining studies are much older, drawing on nat-
ural experiments to compare rates of crime pre- and post-
implementation of jurisdictional MLDA laws. Joksch and Jones
(1993) examined population-based crime patterns in 18 US states
increasing their MLDA to 21 years during the period from 1981 to
1986, and the findings demonstrated significant decreases in disor-
derly conduct and vandalism, but not in violent crimes in the newly
alcohol-restricted age groups. Similarly, Australian researchers
found that legislated decreases in the MLDA in the early 1970s
from 21 to 18 years in three Australian states were associated with
significant increases in nonviolent crimes (e.g., burglary, larceny,
drunkenness) and, in one state, violent crimes among males, with
significant increases also appearing in the all-crimes category
among females (Smith and Burvill, 1987). Still other researchers
found no evidence of increases in self-reported property-crime per-
petration in affected undergraduate students vis-à-vis New York
State MLDA changes from 19 to 21 years in the mid-1980s (Davis
and Reynolds, 1990).
In light of current debates and the paucity of evidence in this
area, it is important to provide more comprehensive research to
inform the MLDA debates in Canada and other countries. A key
advantage of the current approach is that it draws upon 2009–2013
data from Canada’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) survey—a
national, population-based registry of all police-confirmed crimes
in Canada. The current study focuses on those crime outcomes
prominently associated with alcohol in the prior alcohol-crime
(Greenfeld, 1998; Graham and West, 2001; Pernanen et al., 2002)
or MLDA-crime literature (Smith and Burvill, 1987; Davis and
Reynolds, 1990; Joksch and Jones, 1993; Carpenter, 2005; Carpenter
and Dobkin, 2015): violent crimes, property crimes, and disorderly
conduct. It was expected that in comparison to their counterparts
slightly younger than the MLDA, individuals just older than the
MLDA would have significant and sharp increases in these alcohol-
related crime outcomes. In addition, the research design employed
two crime-outcome quasi-controls: cannabis-related offenses; and
narcotics-related offenses. Given that prior Canadian research has
demonstrated only a very small alcohol-attributable fraction (0.02)
for drug-related crimes (Pernanen et al., 2002), these crimes were
expected to be distributed smoothly across the MLDA transition,
showing no evidence of significant change associated with the
drinking age.
2. Methods
2.1. Data source
Our analyses draw on data from the Uniform Crime Report-
ing (UCR) Incident-based Survey, 2009–2013 (Canadian Centre
for Justice Statistics (CCJS) Statistics Canada, 2013a)—a national
database held and managed by the CCJS Statistics Canada. The UCR
is a comprehensive, population-based registry of police-reported
crimes that have been substantiated through investigation from
all federal, provincial and municipal police services in Canada. It
is mandatory for all Canadian police services to provide standard-
ized reports of all criminal incidents in their administrative files to
the UCR Survey, as the incident data collection is mandated by law
under the authority of the Canadian Statistics Act (Canadian Centre
for Justice Statistics and Statistics Canada, 2013b). As a result, the
UCR data captures virtually 100% of police-reported criminal inci-
dents in Canada (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics and Statistics
Canada, 2013b).
2.2. Data collection and data processing: UCR survey
The CCJS provides initial and ongoing training and support for
each police department in Canada to complete the UCR survey
forms (Statistics Canada, 2015). Using a standardized submission
process, trained police personnel send department UCR survey
data to the CCJS central data processing system, which uses more
than 300 intensive checks and edits of all responses from police
department respondents. The CCJS makes contact with police
departments to resolve all edit failures or data anomalies. Upon
completion of the year-end verification process, and prior to final
annual release, each police service is required to approve the annual
department-specific UCR summary data tables as accurate and
complete. The final, annual master Statistics Canada UCR data file is
considered the gold-standard crime-data resource in Canada, and it
is used in national governmental reports on crime in Canada (Boyce,
2015).
2.3. Identification of outcomes: most serious incident
Each incident represents a police substantiated report of a crim-
inal act (or acts), or an arrest, and it is the term used in the
UCR reporting manual by Statistics Canada (CCJS, Statistics Canada,
2013a). Incidents reported in the UCR are not equivalent to convic-
tions. The reported crimes may be cleared by charge (or otherwise)
or may be unsolved.
Aggregated crime count data was comprised of only the most
serious offense for each incident, following the Statistics Canada
approach (Perreault, 2013). In the case of incidents with multi-
ple violations, the most serious incident was determined by the
reporting police department according to the Seriousness Index
(CCJS, Statistics Canada, 2013a), which uses an incident’s maximum
penalty under law as the primary guide for determining the most
serious offense.
2.4. Definition of outcomes
The major crime outcomes were defined using standardized
UCR codes to identify offenses, arranged by the subcategories
nested within each major crime category (see Supplemental Table
1). Coding categories of UCR outcomes (CCJS, Statistics Canada,
2013a) were constructed based on the Canadian Criminal Code
(Government of Canada, 2015) and prior research (Boyce, 2015).
Based on their prominence in the prior alcohol-crime (Parker,
1995; Graham and West, 2001) and MLDA-crime literature (Smith
and Burvill, 1987; Davis and Reynolds, 1990; Joksch and Jones,
1993; Carpenter, 2005; Carpenter and Dobkin, 2015), the follow-
ing crime outcomes were selected for the study: violent crimes,
property crimes, and disorderly conduct. The UCR does not include
any fields indicating alcohol involvement in the record-level
incident. Also, we selected two illicit-drug quasi-control out-
come categories—cannabis-related offenses and narcotics-related
offenses. Given that most of the research on the MLDA-crime nexus
 R.C. Callaghan et al. / Drug and Alcohol Dependence 167 (2016) 67–74
has focused on traffic-related outcomes [which we also explored
in a prior paper (Callaghan et al., 2016)], driving-related crime
outcomes are not included in the current work. The remaining
“other” crime categories [i.e., fraud, weapons charges, other sex-
ual crimes, and all remaining crimes uncategorized (e.g., breach of
probation, prostitution-related offenses, gambling charges, fabri-
cating evidence)] were excluded from the analyses because of their
heterogeneity, relatively small sample sizes, and a lack of a strong
empirical link to alcohol consumption.
2.5. UCR count data
The primary analyses in the current study used counts of the
most serious offense within each incident listed in the UCR system,
pooled across the study period (2009–2013). We chose to analyze
counts—rather than rates (which would be based on counts in the
numerator and population statistics in the denominator)—for two
reasons: the denominator for our primary age-in-weeks indepen-
dent variable cannot be calculated (or imputed accurately) from
population statistics; and the use of census-based data for the cal-
culation of rates might bias the estimate of the “jump” at the MLDA
because the census-based population numbers can only be gener-
ated for age-in-years groupings (e.g., 17-year-olds) and, as a result,
these denominators would change immediately at the potential
MLDA discontinuity. We limited the analysis to 208 weeks-of-age
(approximately 4 years) before and after MLDA (14–22 years).
2.6. Perpetrator’s age
We calculated the age of the perpetrator at the time of the
offense in terms of age-in-weeks.
2.7. Analytic plan
2.7.1. Regression-discontinuity. We employed a regression-
discontinuity (RD) design (Thistlethwaite and Campbell, 1960;
Shadish et al., 2002)—a quasi-experimental approach which can
provide credible estimates of the causal effect of an intervention
on a specified outcome (Lee and Lemieux, 2009). The RD design
takes advantage of the sharp discontinuity in the legality of
alcohol purchasing and consumption appearing at the MLDA:
our approach assigns individuals younger than the MLDA to the
“alcohol-restricted” group and young adults no longer subject to
the MLDA to the “alcohol-accessible” group. The primary, intuitive
idea of the RD approach is that individuals slightly older than
the MLDA and those slightly younger than the MLDA will be
similar on observed (and unobserved) characteristics—except
for the influence of the removal of the MLDA in the alcohol-
accessible group. The RD design assumes that all observed and
unobserved variables (which might influence the crime outcomes)
are smoothly distributed across the age-cutoff (Hahn et al., 2001),
and the effects of the MLDA can be inferred if the regression line
shows a discontinuity at the MLDA (Imbens and Lemieux, 2007).
In other words, since the observed and unobserved determinants
of the crime outcomes (other than the legal granting of access to
alcohol) are likely to be distributed smoothly across the MLDA
threshold, any sharp increases in the number of criminal incidents
immediately following the MLDA can reasonably be attributed to
legal availability of alcohol.
2.7.2. Primary RD analyses. Non-parametric local regression: In
our primary nonparametric local regression analyses, we used a
recent approach (Calonico et al., 2014b) implemented in the R
package—rdrobust (Calonico et al., 2014a; R Core Team, 2014)—to
fit the robust RD models with bias correction. We also used the
triangular kernel weighting approach and a recently proposed
69
strategy for identifying the optimum bandwidth in the local regres-
sion series (Calonico et al., 2014b). All RD analyses were stratified
by gender, provincial MLDA of 18 years of age (MLDA-18), 19 years
of age (MLDA-19), as well as at the aggregated national level.
2.7.3. Sensitivity analyses. To assess the reliability of our pri-
mary local regression models with triangular-kernel weighting,
we undertook a series of local regression models with varying
weighting approaches (i.e., triangular kernel versus uniform ker-
nel), functional forms (i.e., linear versus quadratic), and bandwidth
selection strategies. In addition, to assess the reliability of our pri-
mary results, we also used linear parametric regression models
with a restricted range of 26 points (age-in-weeks) before and after
the MLDA to model the impact of the MLDA on the major crime out-
come categories. Given that estimates of the impacts of the MLDA
may be confounded with the effects of hazardous birthday drink-
ing at the MLDA (Callaghan et al., 2014c), the primary local linear
regression models were re-run without the MLDA birthday-week
values.
3. Results
Of all non-traffic-related crimes committed by individuals aged
14–22 years during the period from 2009 to 2013, 57.3% were
comprised of our main outcome categories—violent crimes, prop-
erty crimes, and disorderly conduct—and 14.3% were comprised
of cannabis-related and narcotics-related crimes. Of the remaining
crime data, motor vehicle-related offenses accounted for 4.7% and
“other” crimes accounted for another 23.7% of all crimes.
Given that the R rdrobust package (Calonico et al., 2014a; R Core
Team, 2014) does not allow for the inclusion of interaction terms
in local regression models [and given that we are not aware of any
of the other standard statistical packages (e.g., Stata, SAS, SPSS)
allowing for such], we employed 3 quadratic parametric regres-
sion models using provinces as a random effect variable to assess
potential gender-by-MLDA effects across each our three main
crime outcomes. The results showed highly significant gender-
by-MLDA effects vis-à-vis each of the three outcomes modeled.
As a result, these findings, along with our previous work demon-
strating differential impacts of the MLDA across gender (Callaghan
et al., 2013a, 2013b, 2014a, 2014b), supported the construction of
gender-specific models. However, analyses were also presented for
the combined sample (males and females) to facilitate comparison
with prior work (Joksch and Jones, 1993; Carpenter and Dobkin,
2015).
Table 1 shows our main RD results for males and females.
In comparison to males slightly younger than the MLDA,
those just older than the MLDA had sharp increases in: all
crimes, 7.6% (95% CI = 3.7%-11.5%, P < 0.001); violent crimes,
7.4% (95% CI = 0.2%–14.6%, P = 0.043); property crimes, 4.8% (95%
CI = 0.0%–9.5%, P = 0.049); and disorderly conduct, 29.4% (95%
CI = 15.6%–43.3%, P < 0.001). Among females, national criminal
incidents increased sharply immediately following the MLDA
for: all crimes 10.4% (95% CI = 3.8%–17.0%, P = 0.002); violent
crimes, 14.9% (95% CI = 6.4%–23.2%, P = 0.001); and disorderly
conduct, 35.3% (95% CI = 11.6%–58.9%, P = 0.004). There was no
evidence of significant national increases immediately follow-
ing the MLDA for males or females in our quasi-control
cannabis/narcotics categories [cannabis: post-MLDA increase, 0.5%
(95% CI = −3.3%–4.4%, P = 0.785); narcotics: post-MLDA increase,
1.2% (95% CI = −5.7%–8.2%, P = 0.744).
Figs. 1 and 2 display scatterplots of female and male national
crime outcomes across age-in-weeks; “jumps” in crime incidents
among males and females can be seen immediately following the
70 R.C. Callaghan et al. / Drug and Alcohol Dependence 167 (2016) 67–74

Table 1
Regression-discontinuity results for local regression models with triangular kernel weighting across categories of crime in Canada, 2009–2013.

Absolute Effect (Jump in Number of Weekly Arrests) Relative Effect (Jump in% of Weekly Arrests)

Categories of Crime MLDA−18a MLDA−19b Total Canadac MLDA-18 MLDA-19 Total Canada
All Crimes
Female 47.0 [16.3;77.6]** 38.8 [8.0;69.5]* 93.0 [33.7;152.3]** 14.7% [5.1%;24.2%] 6.7% [1.4%;12.0%] 10.4% [3.8%;17.0%]
P-value P = 0.003 P = 0.014 P = 0.002
Male 55.2 [1.1;109.3]* 205.9 [110.8;301.0]*** 260.7 [126.6;394.9]*** 4.0% [0.1%;7.9%] 10.1% [5.4%;14.7%] 7.6% [3.7%;11.5%]
P-value P = 0.046 P < 0.001 P < 0.001
Total 86.4 [24.4;148.5]** 240.5 [131.1;349.9]*** 331.5 [168.7;494.3]*** 5.1% [1.4%;8.7%] 9.2% [5.0%;13.3%] 7.7% [3.9%;11.4%]
P-value P = 0.006 P < 0.001 P < 0.001

Violent Violations
Female 8.1 [−2.1;18.2] 15.9 [6.4;25.5]** 26.8 [11.4;42.1]** 10.7% [−2.8%;24.0%] 15.1% [6.1%;23.9%] 14.9% [6.4%;23.2%]
P-value P = 0.119 P = 0.001 P = 0.001
Male −1.2 [−22.4;19.9] 50.2 [17.5;82.9]** 46.1 [1.4;90.8]* −0.5% [−8.5%;7.5%] 14.1% [4.9%;23.3%] 7.4% [0.2%;14.6%]
P-value P = 0.909 P = 0.003 P = 0.043
Total 8.3 [−21.7;38.2] 65.3 [28.9;101.8]*** 70.2 [11.9;128.5]* 2.4% [−6.4%;11.2%] 14.2% [6.3%;22.0%] 8.8% [1.5%;16.0%]
P-value P = 0.589 P < 0.001 P = 0.018

Property Violations
Female 15.5 [−3.1;34.1] −4.1 [−21.6;13.5] 15.9 [−14.3;46.1] 13.0% [−2.7%;28.4%] −2.0% [−10.6%;6.5%] 4.9% [−4.5%;14.2%]
P-value P = 0.103 P = 0.650 P = 0.302
Male 16.3 [−12.5;45.1] 40.5 [2.2;78.8]* 51.3 [0.2;102.4]* 3.4% [−2.6%;9.5%] 6.7% [0.4%;12.9%] 4.8% [0.02%d ;9.5%]
P-value P = 0.267 P = 0.038 P = 0.049
Total 28.5 [−4.2;61.2] 32.4 [−9.2;73.9] 63.8 [9.0;118.7]* 4.8% [−0.7%;10.3%] 4.0% [−1.1%;9.0%] 4.6% [0.6%;8.4%]
P-value P = 0.088 P = 0.127 P = 0.023

Disorderly Conduct
Female 9.9 [4.1;15.8]** 10.1 [1.5;18.7]* 19.8 [6.5;33.0]** 46.3% [19.0%;73.8%] 29.6% [4.5%;54.4%] 35.3% [11.6%;58.9%]
P-value P = 0.001 P = 0.021 P = 0.004
Male 17.1 [8.0;26.1]*** 33.0 [16.5;49.5]*** 48.6 [25.9;71.3]*** 29.2% [13.6%;45.1%] 30.8% [15.3%;46.4%] 29.4% [15.6%;43.3%]
P-value P < 0.001 P < 0.001 P < 0.001
Total 27.1 [13.6;40.7]*** 40.7 [17.7;63.7]** 68.3 [33.3;103.2]*** 33.9% [16.9%;51.2%] 28.5% [12.4%;44.8%] 30.8% [15.0%;46.8%]
P-value P < 0.001 P = 0.001 P < 0.001

Cannabis-related Violations
Female 1.1 [−2.8;5.0] 1.5 [−4.7;7.6] 0.9 [−5.2;7.1] 5.9% [−15.1%;26.4%] 2.6% [−8.2%;13.5%] 1.3% [−6.9%;9.4%]
P-value P = 0.581 P = 0.636 P = 0.763
Male −3.7 [−13.2;5.7] −1.0 [−20.8;18.7] −1.8 [−23.6;20.1] −2.4% [−8.6%;3.8%] −0.3% [−6.3%;5.6%] −0.4% [−4.9%;4.2%]
P-value P = 0.442 P = 0.917 P = 0.874
Total −0.7 [−10.8;9.3] 2.8 [−17.4;22.9] 3.0 [−18.4;24.3] −0.4% [−6.4%;5.5%] 0.7% [−4.5%;5.9%] 0.5% [−3.3%;4.4%]
P-value P = 0.889 P = 0.787 P = 0.785

Narcotics-related Violationse
Female 0.8 [−1.6;3.2] 1.2 [−2.3;4.7] 3.3 [−1.7;8.2] 13.4% [−26.2%;52.7%] 8.9% [−16.9%;34.8%] 17.2% [−9.0%;43.3%]
P-value P = 0.507 P = 0.500 P = 0.198
Male 0.1 [−4.3;4.6] −0.1 [−6.3;6.0] 0.3 [−7.2;7.9] 0.4% [−12.1%;13.1%] −0.2% [−9.7%;9.5%] 0.4% [−7.2%;8.0%]
P-value P = 0.948 P = 0.967 P = 0.927
Total 0.4 [−4.6;5.5] 0.8 [−5.8;7.3] 1.4 [−6.9;9.7] 1.1% [−10.9%;13.2%] 1.0% [−7.4%;9.5%] 1.2% [−5.7%;8.2%]
P-value P = 0.864 P = 0.821 P = 0.744
***
P-value < 0.001.
**
P-value < 0.01.
*
P-value < 0.05.
a
Data were aggregated across provinces with a minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) of 18 years old (i.e. Quebec, Manitoba, and Alberta).
b
Data were aggregated across provinces with an MLDA of 19 years old (the remaining 7 provinces).
c
Data were aggregated across all 10 Canadian provinces.
d
The lower limit of the 95% confidence interval for male property crimes across Canada was reported to 2 decimal places to avoid a 0 value.
e
The Narcotics-related violations category contains all illicit drug-related crimes, except for those related to cannabis (e.g., heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, methamphetamine).
As a result, it is a heterogeneous crime outcome.

MLDA. Fig. 3 provides a bar chart detailing the relative increases Table 1) but without conventional statistical significance (at
(expressed in%) in crimes occurring immediately after the MLDA. P < 0.05). In addition, the sensitivity analyses replicating the
primary local regression results—but excluding the MLDA birthday-
week values—demonstrated somewhat attenuated effect sizes but
3.1. Sensitivity analyses
similar patterns of statistical significance as those indicated in our
primary local regression models.
In comparison to the primary local regression results, the esti-
To assess the possibility that the observed effects were due to
mated MLDA effects at the national level in the sensitivity analyses
age (i.e., impacts of age-18 effects in MLDA-19 provinces, and age-
for males and females were generally similar in terms of size
19 effects in MLDA-18 provinces) or age-of-majority (i.e., impacts
and statistical significance for: local regression models with lin-
of gaining adult status), we conducted 60 additional regression-
ear or quadratic forms and either uniform- or triangular-kernel
discontinuity analyses associated with these potential effects. The
weighting schemes; and linear parametric models using 26 data
results demonstrated very little evidence that crime outcomes were
points before and after the MLDA. There were some inconsis-
associated with age-18, age-19, or age-of-majority variables (see
tencies across models for male property-crime outcomes—which
Supplemental Tables 2–3).
had similarly-sized post-MLDA increases (as those indicated in
 R.C. Callaghan et al. / Drug and Alcohol Dependence 167 (2016) 67–74 71

Fig. 1. Number of female crime incidents in Canada (2009–2013) by age-in-weeks leading up to and following the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA).

Fig. 2. Number of male crime incidents in Canada (2009–2013) by age-in-weeks leading up to and following the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA).

4. Discussion showed immediate and sharp post-MLDA increases of approxi-

The current study demonstrated that release from drinking-
age restrictions is associated with significant and sharp increases
not only in male and female perpetration of violent crimes, but
also nonviolent crimes, such as disorderly conduct and property
crimes. Given that our “control” crime categories—cannabis-related
and narcotics-related crimes—showed no evidence of a signifi-
cant relation with the MLDA, this pattern strengthens our primary
results. In addition, our prior work using the same UCR data system
mately 20–35% in national alcohol-impaired driving arrests among
males and females (Callaghan et al., 2016). In light of our study
results, it is important that current policy discussions consider the
neglected role of drinking-age legislation in preventing alcohol-
related violent and nonviolent crimes in underage populations.
Our study demonstrated that violent crime increased by approx-
imately 9% immediately after the MLDA, and this pattern is similar
to the approximate 7.2% increase in the post-MLDA violent crime
rate found in a recent regression-discontinuity study using Cali-
72 R.C. Callaghan et al. / Drug and Alcohol Dependence 167 (2016) 67–74
Fig. 3. Relative change (%) in the number of national criminal incidents immediately following the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA).
fornia arrest data (Carpenter and Dobkin, 2015). Nonetheless, the
scant prior research in this area has produced mixed results, with
most studies showing no evidence of a relation between MLDA
legislation and violent crime. In addition, some studies did not
address gender effects (Joksch and Jones, 1993; Carpenter and
Dobkin, 2015), or did not have adequate statistical power to assess
female violent crimes (Smith and Burvill, 1987; Davis and Reynolds,
1990). While the current study did not assess specific mecha-
nisms of how drinking-age legislation might affect violent crime,
it is possible to speculate. First, transition across the MLDA may
be associated with increased alcohol consumption, especially haz-
ardous drinking (Smart and Schmidt, 1975; Carpenter and Dobkin,
2009). Increased levels of hazardous alcohol consumption leads to
a greater propensity towards the escalation of violence not only
because of the biological effects of alcohol on risk-taking, impaired
cognition, emotion regulation, and aggression (Boles and Miotto,
2003; Giancola, 2004; Parrott and Giancola, 2006; Giancola et al.,
2009), but also because hazardous drinking often takes place in
public settings in which violence may be more likely to occur—such
as bars, nightclubs, and other drinking establishments (Graham and
West, 2001; Wells et al., 2005). Bar-and-nightclub settings may
have a number of factors associated with increased propensity for
violence, such as the presence of other intoxicated individuals (and
suitable victims), low levels of social control, and increased promi-
nence of power concerns (e.g., “macho” posturing and male honor;
Graham and Wells, 2003), as well as overarching setting-specific
(Graham et al., 2006) and cultural expectations which might con-
done violent offending (Graham et al., 2000; Graham and West,
2001). Thus, drinking-age legislation might exert its influence on
violent crime not only by increasing individual-level episodes of
hazardous drinking, but also by shifting, to some extent, the loca-
tion of alcohol consumption to settings which may carry a greater
propensity for violent offending (Graham and West, 2001; Graham
et al., 2006).
Our findings also add to the existing literature by indicating
that transition across Canada’s legal drinking age is associated
with significant and immediate population-level increases in non-
violent crimes, such as property crimes and disorderly conduct,
among young men and women newly discharged from drinking-
age restrictions. In particular, the national estimates for post-MLDA
increases from our study for property crimes (4.6%) and disor-
derly conduct (30.8%) are higher than similar outcomes described
in an earlier RD approach, which found a small increase in
property crimes (2.2%) and a negligible change in disorderly con-
duct/vagrancy (Carpenter and Dobkin, 2015). For the most part,
however, the prior evidence in this area has shown that MLDA leg-
islation has an impact on nonviolent crime, with higher MLDAs
associated with reduced patterns of nonviolent crimes in the
affected age groups and lower MLDAs associated with increases
(Smith and Burvill, 1987; Davis and Reynolds, 1990; Joksch and
Jones, 1993; Carpenter, 2005; Carpenter and Dobkin, 2015). This
prior literature, however, has not been able to estimate the differ-
ential impact of drinking-age legislation across gender. In our study,
both males and females show sharp and significant increases in
nonviolent criminal incidents immediately following the legislated
drinking-age.
The current study has a number of potential limitations. Post-
MLDA increases in police-reported criminal incidents may be due
to increases in alcohol consumption and impairment in the per-
petrator, leading to a greater probability of arrest (i.e., alcohol use
makes for sloppier criminals)—rather than actual population-level
increases in criminal behavior. However, this is likely a negligible
issue, as it would be expected that such a pattern would lead to
increases in all specific crime categories—including the illicit-drug
“control” offenses—rather than the variation seen in the current
study. In addition, this argument would have difficulty accounting
for the sharp and immediate increases in alcohol-impaired driv-
ing incidents in the UCR database occurring immediately after the
MLDA—a pattern we describe in an earlier paper (Callaghan et al.,
2016). Also, the regression-discontinuity approach assumes that
potentially confounding variables are smoothly distributed across
the MLDA cutoff. Given that late adolescence and early adulthood
is a time of significant life transitions, it is possible that changes
associated with such periods [e.g., in educational attainment, liv-
ing status (e.g., living at home with parents), socioeconomic status]
may have affected our results. However, it seems unlikely that
life-transition variables would have strongly influenced our esti-
mates of MLDA impacts because young people near the MLDA
 R.C. Callaghan et al. / Drug and Alcohol Dependence 167 (2016) 67–74
would be quite similar on these life-transition patterns, and these
life-transition variables would likely have had an impact on both
alcohol-related crime and our quasi-control crime categories. There
was no evidence of significant jumps, however, appearing imme-
diately after the MLDA in cannabis- or narcotics-related crimes
in our study. Nonetheless, the possibility of confounding by these
lifestyle variables increases as the timespan in age-in-weeks from
the MLDA increases. It is not possible to untangle the potential
confound between the direct effects of release from drinking age
laws from the concomitant effects of gaining of legal access to
bar and nightclub settings—locations which likely carry a greater
propensity (than usual pre-MLDA drinking contexts) for the com-
mission of crimes and police involvement. Crimes occurring at bars
and nightclubs (and “open-air” areas surrounding such establish-
ments) accounted for approximately 33% of all criminal incidents
(non-traffic and traffic violations) in the age group 14–22 years. In
criminal incidents occurring at such locations, the MLDA may have
a more distal effect by not only allowing alcohol consumption, but
also legal access to these locations. As well, for incidents involv-
ing multiple offenses with identical maximum penalties, police
department personnel must assign the most serious offense in
the specific incident record based on individual discretion. The
variance in recording of the most serious offense would only
bias our estimates if there were differential and systematic biases
in the recording of the most serious offenses for the age group
slightly younger than the MLDA versus those just older. At this
time, we are not aware of any evidence to support this possi-
bility. Also, the regression-discontinuity design cannot provide
specific estimates of potential crime reductions associated with
raising the MLDA to 19 or 21 years. However, study findings do
suggest that drinking-age laws limit crime patterns among youth
under drinking-age restrictions and, as a result, it seems rea-
sonable to expect that if the MLDA were raised, alcohol-related
crime patterns would be attenuated in the newly alcohol-restricted
groups.
Despite these potential limitations, study results provide impor-
tant population-based evidence that release from drinking-age
restrictions is associated with significant and immediate increases
in male and female criminal behavior, including a range of vio-
lent and nonviolent crimes. MLDA effects on non-traffic-related
crime rarely have been examined, and the current findings
should be incorporated into the current debates and policy
discussions.
Role of funding source
The current study was funded by an Open Operating Grant
from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP − 133699)
awarded to the lead author (RCC). The funding body had no role in
the data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, preparation
or submission of the manuscript.
Contributors
All authors have made substantial contributions warranting
authorship on the current manuscript. RCC conceived of the study
and supervised the statistical analyses and manuscript preparation;
JG provided a critical review of relevant literature and contributed
to interpretation of the statistical analysis and manuscript prepa-
ration; MS conducted the statistical analyses and contributed to
manuscript preparation; CB contributed to the review of relevant
literature and contributed to manuscript preparation. All authors
have given their approval for the current version to be submitted
for peer-review at the journal.
73
Conflict of interest
No conflict declared.
Acknowledgements
Kathy Aucoin and Jacob Greenland at the Canadian Centre for
Justice Studies (Statistics Canada) provided invaluable assistance
during the data-request and data acquisition phases of the project,
and they as well as Sara Dunn contributed to the interpretation of
results.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.
07.023.
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