[NEWS] Alcohol linked to 75% of WA Murders

[Crunchy]

Alcohol linked to three quarters of WA murders

CHRIS THOMSON

November 19, 2009 - 12:01PM

Three-quarters of homicides in WA last year were related to alcohol consumption, according to police incident statistics.

 

Figures released by WA Police ahead of a booze blitz planned for Northbridge, Perth and Fremantle show that 44 of the 58 murders committed in the state in 2008/09 were "alcohol related".

 

"Alcohol-fuelled violence is one of the most pressing social challenges of our time," WA Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan said at the launch of the blitz, termed Operation Unite.

 

Unveiled today in Perth, Operation Unite is a concerted clampdown that on December 11 and 12 will see police flood nightspot precincts across Australia and New Zealand.

 

"While we cannot arrest our way out of this problem, we agree there is a need for stronger policing," Mr O'Callaghan said.

 

For assault, more than 82 per cent of cases involved alcohol, and 55.4 per cent of threatening behaviour incidents were associated with drinking.

 

Alcohol's link to more calculated crimes such as burglary, motor theft and arson paled in significance - being 1.8 per cent, 1.0 per cent and 4.8 per cent of incidents respectively.

 

Booze was linked to 28.1 per cent of sexual assault cases, and implicated in 40.6 per cent of deprivation of liberty incidents.

 

Alcohol was a factor in 38 of WA's 154 fatal car crashes, and 83 of its 268 serious crashes.

 

Of the 759,669 times drivers that completed a random breath test over the period, 21,851 or 2.9 per cent, exceeded the legal limit.

 

Hospitalisations caused by drinking rose by about 15 per cent in WA over the decade to 2005, according to Curtin University National Drug Research Institute statistics.

 

This was the lowest percentage increase in Australia, at about half the national level.

 

source: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/alcohol-...91119-io3t.html

[Crunchy]

My dad always said he was positive the massive amount of violence in northbridge was caused by people under the influence of cannabis... though it was obvious most of it can be attributed to alcohol.

yet when i showed him this article he just said "nothing new"... people see and think only what is convenient or what they want to see >.>

 

i find myself becoming angry and bitter towards these ignorant people, i'm losing the patience to have an intellectual debate with them time and time again... these days all i want to do is tell them they are fucking idiots, which doesnt get anywhere (and that is frustrating in itself).

 

Atleast i have the medicine for my ever increasingly short temper

[Fibrofeend]

I feel ya crunchy..well not literally hah..but yeah that good old saying, ignorance is BLISS! oh so blissful...because knowledge can be a burden.

I think if everyone just sticks there heads up there bums we should be fine

[Crunchy]

i suddenly feel the need to bump this..

[bufo marinus]

i find myself becoming angry and bitter towards these ignorant people, i'm losing the patience to have an intellectual debate with them time and time again... these days all i want to do is tell them they are fucking idiots, which doesnt get anywhere (and that is frustrating in itself).

 

Atleast i have the medicine for my ever increasingly short temper

 

I've been battling this mindset since being forced into rehab 20 years ago after being flogged like a dog in a watch house the year before that. Anger? I got it coming out my fuckin ears.

These news stories where the evidence from alcohol related crime is ignored by the masses/society/the courts just makes it worse.

I'd love to walk around with a big stick in a room full of cops/magistrates/greedy scumbag lawyers/rehab councellors and they're all hangin out for a drink,... everytime they ask for one I belt em with the stick, and stuff a bud down their throat instead. Fuck em. I hope they all get glassed.

[Crunchy]

haha bufo, i cant agree more, if only you could get away with doing that, someone needs to put some thc in their drinking water during one of their meetings or something...