Closing Bars Early Reduced Murders by 40% in One US Neighborhood
A most interesting research finding. We cannot eliminate alcohol from our society. We tried that once. But what we can do is to better “manage” both the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. Here’s one proposed solution. (Of course, my cop-mind kicked in right away and was asking “But what about after-hours ‘tippling houses?'” Was a parallel study done to track murders around those illegal establishments at the same time?) Nevertheless, here is the report from my daily news sent from PERF:
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“Reducing the hours bars and taverns could sell alcohol in a Baltimore neighborhood reduced all violent crime in the area annually by 23 percent, a study has found.
“Research by the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and the Alcohol Research Group of Emeryville, California, found that the number of murders dropped by 51 percent [my emphasis] within the first month of the trial.For the study, the team analyzed the impact of the Maryland Senate Bill 571, which was introduced in September 2020. Instead of staying open until 2 am, bars and taverns were required to shut at 10 pm.
“The team then measured total violent crime incidents within 800 feet of bars and taverns from May 2018 to December 2022 — before and after the new legislation. They compared these to crimes happening near 41 other bars with unchanged hours of operation in demographically similar Baltimore neighborhoods.
“The researchers looked at both violent crime and common assault. Overall, the reduction in crime saved Baltimore an estimated $18.2 million in annual costs [my emphasis.]
“However, additional research is needed to test this policy in other cities and for longer periods of time.” (Newsweek, April 2, 2024.)
Improving Police: A Necessary Conversation 
We should reduce the hours of restaurants, gas stations, fast food joints plus getting rid of food, tobacco, and alcohol products at the gas stations. Too many of these places operate well into the night and after midnight which makes them vulnerable to being robbed. In the past several decades, you have too many workers in these places being beaten, wounded or killed during these robberies more compare to the cops.
You would also cut down on the number of police calls to these places plus cut down the costs of police looking for the criminals as patrol cops and as detectives which will help prevent more police deaths or injuries because of them trying to catch the crooks
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