The Case for Raising Alcohol Taxes

“The single most effective thing you can to reduce crime right away is to raise the price of alcohol,” [Kleiman] told me. “If you talk either about crime policy or drug policy, that’s got to be the No. 1 recommendation — just because it’s so easy. It doesn’t cost you anything. You don’t have to kick in anybody’s door. You just have to change a number in the tax code and crime goes down.”