Understanding the link between alcohol dependence and victimisation risk: Is risk explained by peers or alcohol behaviours?

BACKGROUND: Alcohol dependence is a risk factor for experiencing victimisation, but little is known about how peer and behavioural mechanisms may explain this relationship.

AIMS: To test deviant peer association and/or heavy-episodic drinking frequency as mediators between alcohol dependence and risk for being victimised.

METHODS: The Pathways to Desistance data were analysed. Generalised structural equation modelling was used to determine whether either or both of the hypothesised pathways significantly mediated the relationship between alcohol dependence and victimisation.

RESULTS: Alcohol dependence at recruitment (age 14-17) was associated with higher odds of being a victim of some form of violence in Wave 3 (age x-y). This relationship was significantly mediated by deviant peer association but not heavy-episodic drinking frequency between Waves 2 and 3.

CONCLUSIONS: These findings add knowledge about the mechanism of a link between early alcohol dependence and later violent victimisation among young offenders. They suggest that more focus on reducing delinquent peer association, or reducing its impact, is crucial to reducing further harms to these young people, in turn possibly affecting continuing substance use and reoffending risks. Peer mentoring programmes help to provide prosocial modelling and reduce deviant peer ties in some circumstances, and these findings suggest that the next step should be their evaluation specifically among justice-involved young people with alcohol dependence. Providing additional funding and/or opportunities for involvement in such mentoring programmes may help to reduce the public health and financial costs associated with alcohol dependence in the juvenile justice system.