To fight crime, raise alcohol taxes

Raising alcohol taxes would cut down on excessive drinking and reduce crime

Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi

After decades of falling crime rates, Oregon – especially Portland – has seen a surge in homicides. Although official statistics indicate that statewide, other forms of crime are not rising, the public perception is that crime in general is out of control. As the Legislature convenes, legislators are going to want to do something about crime.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to come up with a comprehensive, research-based policy approach to crime. Nobody really has a comprehensive explanation for why crime spiked from the ‘70’s through the ‘80’s, or why it collapsed for 20 years or so after 1991. (Franklin Zimring made this point in his book, “The Great American Crime Decline.”)

But we do know that there are steps we can take to, at least on the margins, decrease crime. One step is especially obvious. A huge share of crimes involves the use of alcohol. Raising alcohol taxes would cut down on excessive drinking and reduce crime. So if legislators really want to do something about crime, they should raise taxes on beer and wine.

That should be relatively easy, given that Oregon has among the lowest taxes on beer and wine in the country. Oregon’s beer tax is just eight cents a gallon, less than a third of Washington’s – and that doesn’t even count Washington 6.5% general sales tax, which also applies to beer.

I know, I know: it hasn’t been easy. The graveyards of Salem are filled with legislators who tried and failed to raise beer and wine taxes. But I don’t think there has been a concerted effort to frame it as primarily a crime-fighting idea. Eugene Senator Floyd Prozanski has explained the connection, but he hasn’t had enough company.

Advocates need to drive the connection home. According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics study in 1998, “nearly 4 in 10 violent victimizations involve use of alcohol, about 4 in 10 fatal motor vehicle accidents are alcohol-involved; and about 4 in 10 offenders, regardless of whether they are on probation, in local jail, or in State prison, self-report that they were using alcohol at the time of the offense.” In addition, “two-thirds of victims who suffered violence by an intimate (a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend) reported that alcohol had been a factor.”

And alcohol taxes work. The New York Times observed this September that “A large body of evidence shows that higher alcohol taxes are associated with less excessive drinking and lower rates of disease and injury deaths.” The late criminologist Mark Kleiman said that “The single most effective thing you can to reduce crime right away is to raise the price of alcohol. If you talk either about crime policy or drug policy, that’s got to be the No. 1 recommendation.” 

Now what should be done with the money? Historically, the answer has been addiction treatment. That’s an excellent idea. But perhaps it’s time to float some other ideas and see if they get more traction.

One way to emphasize that this is an anti-crime measure would be to use the money to hire more police, or people to supplement the police. There are some places, like Josephine County, where the police really HAVE been defunded, and voters won’t approve public safety levies. They need more police. In Portland, possibly the more efficient thing to do is not to literally hire more police, but to hire more Portland Street Response type people to take more of the calls that aren’t really about crime, freeing up the police to focus on actual crime.

Another idea worth considering is to not spend the money at all, but send it back to taxpayers as a credit on the income tax, probably on a per capita basis. Kind of an automatic “alcohol kicker.” People who don’t drink much would get a windfall, problem drinkers would drink less, and the idea couldn’t be attacked as a “money grab.”

The benefits of higher alcohol taxes would go way beyond crime. As that September New York Times article pointed out, many more Oregonians die from alcohol-related diseases, like liver and kidney disease: “last year, 2,153 residents died of causes attributed to alcohol, according to the Oregon Health Authority — more than twice the number of people killed by methamphetamines, heroin and fentanyl combined.” The Oregon problem has been getting worse: “the rate of alcohol-induced deaths grew 2.5 times from 1999 to 2020.”

Let’s fight crime. Let’s save lives. Let’s raise alcohol taxes.

Steve Novick is an environmental lawyer and former Portland city commissioner.

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Reprinted by permission of the Pamplin Media Group