Barking up the wrong tree

This paper examines the relation between prohibitions and violence, using the historical behavior of the homicide rate in the United States. The results document that increases in enforcement of drug and alcohol prohibition have been associated with increases in the homicide rate, and auxiliary evidence suggests this positive correlation reflects a causal effect of prohibition enforcement on homicide. Controlling for other potential determinants of the homicide rate does not alter the conclusion that drug and alcohol prohibition have substantially raised the homicide rate in the U.S. over much of the past 100 years.

Source: "Violence and the U.S. prohibitions of drugs and alcohol" from American Law and Economics Review V1 N1 1999 (78-114)

Recently added to my reading list: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.