U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Evaluating a Natural Experiment in Alcohol Policy: The Licensing Act (2003) and the Requirement for Attention to Implementation

NCJ Number
229485
Journal
Criminology and Public Policy Volume: 9 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2010 Pages: 41-67
Author(s)
David K. Humphreys; Manuel P. Eisner
Date Published
February 2010
Length
27 pages
Annotation
This study examined the impact of a dramatic policy change (Licensing Act (2003)) aiming to prevent peaks of violent crime and disorder by altering problematic concentrations in the closing times of premises licensed to serve alcohol in England and Wales.
Abstract
The findings of this study indicate that the Licensing Act (2003) did change patterns of opening hours among a large sample of licensed premises during the first 2 years of implementation. These findings indicate that changes in licensing were diverse with licensed premises that opted to extend, reduce, and delay changes to the hours with which they sold alcohol. In observing change caused within clusters of premises, the results indicate that some degree of staggering had been achieved for most clusters. The Licensing Act was implemented throughout England and Wales in 2005 and was enacted to remove fixed closing times and install staggered closing times across regions where it potentially would reduce violent crime and disorder. It was a measure that tried to achieve crime reduction by removing restraints rather than by adding them. Greater variation was found in the extent to which the provisions of the policies were installed as intended. The study demonstrates the importance of observing how policy interventions are applied in real-world contexts. It showed that greater attention to implementation issues will help improve understandings of impact and effectiveness of prevention measures. Tables, figures, references, and appendixes A-C