Using Areal Interpolation to Better Assess the Relationship Between Alcohol Availability and Violent Crime

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Source Publication

Journal of Crime & Justice

Source ISSN

0735-648X

Original Item ID

DOI: 10.1080/0735648X.2025.2531365

Abstract

Prior studies using U.S. Census block groups, tracts, and ZIP codes as proxies for neighborhood boundaries have examined the relationship between alcohol availability and violence. However, we know less about whether this association holds at the municipally identified neighborhood (MIN) level, based on locally defined boundaries for neighborhoods that often account for both characteristics of areas, as well as resident input. This is due to data collection and measurement challenges associated with gathering and analyzing data at this level of analysis. Yet data at the MIN level can arguably be more readily interpreted for local intervention. To address this gap, this project entailed gathering the socioeconomic data at the block group- and tract-levels for 2022 and systematically evaluating different areal interpolation methods to obtain MIN-level estimates. In addition, the 2022 data on alcohol outlets and violent crime were geocoded and subsequently aggregated to block groups, tracts, and MINs. Ultimately, the association between alcohol availability and violence was modeled at the block group-, tract-, and MIN-levels, controlling for socioeconomic measures commonly found to correlate with violence. The findings show that (1) areal interpolation methods can be used to estimate data to analyze the MIN-level association between alcohol outlets and violence, (2) the association between alcohol outlets and violent crime is found at the Census block group and tract levels, and (3) on-premises alcohol outlets diffuse their effect on violence across larger swaths of geography, whereas off-premises outlets do so across much smaller areas. This research has important methodological implications for the literature that relies on data at the block group- and tract-levels to approximate neighborhood-level processes.

Comments

Journal of Crime & Justice, online before print. DOI.

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