The purpose of the paper is to investigate how young women and men in focus group discussions reason about alcohol, street violence, fear of assault by a stranger, and to compare the different kinds of threats that young women and men present of what might happen when they are out at night and on their way home. The interviews are analysed from the point of view of the accounts the young people give for their feelings and behaviors. The young women's accounts are dominated by their answers to an implicit question of blame for how they ensure their security and which measures they have taken. What the young women are afraid of is rarely formulated explicitly. It is implicit and goes without much saying. On the other hand the accounts the young men are giving for their actions consist of answers to the implicit question of blame for violence they have been involved in and also of blame for fear of violence. The young men's picture of threat is concrete and consists of other young men of the same age. By their accounts they show that fear of violence is something that has to be given an explanation. The young men use intoxication both as an excuse for the violence they are using and as an explanation to why violence occurs.
AbrahamsonM. (2004a) When I drank too much—young people in their 20s tell their stories. Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs21(English supplement), 63–78.
2.
AbrahamsonM. (2004b) Alcohol in courtship contexts. Focus group interviews with young Swedish women and men. Contemporary Drug Problems31, 3–29.
3.
BarbourR. & KitzingerJ. (1999) Developing Focus Group Research. Politics, Theory & Practice. London: Sage.
4.
BauerM. & GaskellG. (1999) Towards a paradigm for research on social representations. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior29(2), 163–186.
5.
BiernackiP. & WaldorfD. (1981) Snowball sampling. Problems and techniques of chain referral sampling. Sociological Methods & Research10(2), 141–163.
6.
BullockS. (in press) Does intoxication provide a valid excuse for sexual aggression? Response of Swedish young adults to a hypothetical scenario. Addiction.
7.
ButtnyR. (1993) Social Accountability in Communication. London, Newbury Park, New Delhi: Sage Publications.
8.
CoatesL. & WadeA. (2004) Telling it like it isn't: Obscuring perpetrator responsibility for violent crime. Discourse & Society15(5), 449–526.
9.
CritchlowB. (1985) The blame in the bottle: Attributions about drunken behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin11(3), 258–274.
10.
de CrespignyC.VincentN. & AskA. (1999) Young women's social drinking in context—pub style: A study of decision making and social drinking of young women in urban South Australia. Contemporary Drug Problems26(3), 439–452.
11.
FerrisJ. (1997) Courtship, drinking and control: A qualitative analysis of women's and men's experiences. Contemporary Drug Problems24(4), 667–702.
12.
FinchE. & MunroV. (2005) Juror stereotypes and blame attribution in rape cases involving intoxicants: The findings of a pilot study. British Journal of Criminology45(1), 25–38.
13.
GrahamK.LeonardK.RoomR.WildT. C.PihlR.BoisC. & SingleE. (1998) Current directions in research of understanding and preventing intoxicated aggression. Addiction93, 659–676.
14.
GrahamK.WellsS. & WestP. (1997) A framework for applying explanations of alcohol-related aggression to naturally occurring aggressive behavior. Contemporary Drug Problems24, 625–666.
15.
GrahamK. & WellsS. (2001) The two worlds of aggression for men and women. Sex Roles45(9/10), 595–622.
16.
GrahamK. & WellsS. (2003) ‘Somebody's gonna get their head kicked in tonight!’ Aggression among young males in bars—a question of values?British Journal of Criminology43(3), 546–566.
17.
GrahamK. & WestP. (2001) Alcohol and Crime: Examining the link. In HeatherN.PetersT. & StockwellT. (eds) International Handbook of Alcohol Dependence and Problems. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., pp. 439–70.
18.
GusfieldJ. (1996) Contested Meanings: The Construction of Alcohol Problems. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
19.
HällL. (2004) Offer för våld och egendomsbrott egendomsbrott 1978–2002 (Victims of Violence and of Property Crimes 1978–2002]. Levnadsförhållanden. Rapport 104. Stockholm: Statistiska centralbyrån [Statistics Sweden].
20.
JärvinenM. (2001) Accounting for trouble: Identity negotiations in qualitative interviews with alcoholics. Symbolic Interaction24(3), 263–284.
21.
KarlssonJ. & PetterssonT. (2003) Fokusgruppsintervjuer med ungdomar om genus och våld. Konstruktioner av gärningspersoner och offer. [Focus group interviews with young people about gender and violence: Constructions of perpetrators and victims]. Rapport 2003, 2. Kriminologiska institutionen, Stockholms universitet.
22.
KühlhornE. (2004) Misshandel [Assault]. I Dolmén (red)Brottsutvecklingen i Sverige 2001–2003. Brottsförebyggande rådet. BRÅ-rapport 2004, 4. Stockholm: Liber.
23.
LambR. & LalljeeM. (1992) The use of prototypical explanations in first- and third-person accounts. In McLaughlinCody & Read (Eds) Explaining One's Self to Others. Reason-Giving in a Social Context. Hove and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
24.
LenkeL. (1990) Alcohol and Criminal Violence—Time Series Analyses in a Comparative Perspective. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
25.
MacAndrewC. & EdgertonR.B. (1969) Drunken Comportment. A Social Explanation. London: Nelson.
26.
NorströmT. (1998) Effects on criminal violence of different beverage types and private and public drinking. Addiction93(5), 689–99.
27.
PagliaA. & RoomR. (1998) Alcohol and aggression: General population views about causation and responsibility. Journal of Substance Abuse10(2), 199–216.
28.
RoomR. & RossowI. (2001) The share of violence attributable to violence. Journal of Substance Use6, 218–28.
29.
RossowLPapeH. & WichstromL. (1999) Young, wet and wild? Associations between alcohol intoxication and violent behavior in adolescense. Addiction94(7), 1017–1031.
30.
RossowI. (2001) Alcohol and homicide: A cross cultural comparison of the relationship in 14 European countries. Addiction96 (supplement 1), 77–92.
31.
SCB (2000) Barn och deras föräldrar. Familjesammansättning, separation mellan föräldrar, boende, inkomster, barnomsorg och föräldrarnas sysselsättning. Demografiska rapporter 2000:2. Stockholm: Statistiska centralbyrån.
32.
SCB (2004) Offer för våld och egendomsbrott [Victims of Violence and of Property Crimes] 1978–2002. Utdrag från rapport 104 i serien Undersökningar av levnadsförhållanden [Living conditions]. Stockholm: Statistiska centralbyrån [Statistics Sweden].
33.
SchlenkerB.PontariB. & ChristopherA. (2001) Excuses and character: Personal and social implications of excuses. Personality and Social Psychology Review5(1), 15–32.
34.
ScottM. & LymanS. (1968) Accounts. American Sociological Review33, 46–52.
35.
TryggvessonK. (2004) The ambiguous excuse: Attributing violence to intoxication—young Swedes about the excuse value of alcohol. Contemporary Drug Problems31, 231–261.
36.
TryggvessonK. & BullockS. (2004) “Äsch han var bara full”—Om unga vuxnas syn på alkohol som ursäkt för våldsamma beteenden. [“Oh he was just drunk”—Young adults' view on alcohol as an excuse for violent behaviors]Nordisk-alkohol och narkotikatidskrift21(2), 131–144.
37.
WennstamK. (2002) Flickan och skulden. En bok om samhällets syn på våldtäkt. [The girl and the blame. A book about society's view on rape]. Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag.
38.
WhiteH. R. & HanseliS. (1993) Alcohol use and aggression among youth. Alcohol Health and Research World17(2), 144–51.
39.
WibeckV. (2000) Fokusgrupper. Om fokuserade gruppintervjuer som undersökningsmetod. [Focus groups. On focused group interviews as a method for investigation]. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
