3 million violent crimes occur each year in which victims perceive the offender to have been drinking. The list includes rapes and sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated and simple assaults.

About 3 million violent crimes occur each year in which victims perceive the offender to have been drinking. The list includes rapes and sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated and simple assaults.

About two-thirds — 2 million — of violent crimes are characterized as simple assaults.

However, based on victim reports, each year about 183,000 (37 percent) of rapes and sexual assaults involve alcohol use by the offender, as do just over 197,000 (15 percent) robberies, about 661,000 (27 percent) aggravated assaults, and nearly 1.7 million (25 percent) simple assaults.

Following is other statistical data showing the correlation between alcohol use and crime.

• Among violent crimes, the offender is far more likely to have been drinking than under the influence of other drugs, with the exception of robberies, where other drugs are as likely to have been used as alcohol.

• Alcohol is more likely to be a factor in violence, where the attacker and the victim know one another. Two-thirds of victims who were attacked by an intimate (including a current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend) reported that alcohol had been involved, whereas only 31 percent of victimizations by strangers are alcohol-related.

• Nearly 500,000 incidents of violence between intimates involve offenders who have been drinking; in addition, 118,000 incidents of family violence (excluding spouses) involve alcohol, as do 744,000 incidents among acquaintances.

• 1.4 million incidents of alcohol-related violence are committed against strangers.

• Individuals under age 21 were the victims in just over 13 percent of incidents of alcohol-related violence, and the offenders in nearly 9 percent.