ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two types of violent crimes that are particularly frightening: murder and assault. It discusses the crimes that occur on the streets of America but also the violence that emerges in the privacy of one's home, and in corporate offices. Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has tabulated in its Uniform Crime Reports the crimes reported to the police in the United States and some characteristics of those arrested. The FBI defines aggravated assault as the 'unlawful attack by one person upon another wherein the offender uses a weapon or displays it in a threatening manner, or victim suffers obvious or severe bodily harm'. In 2002, when Americans were surveyed about whether courts deal with criminals too harshly or not harshly enough, 67 percent responded 'not harshly enough'. Certainly some offenders are treated leniently, and when a criminal gets off the hook because of a technicality the case often grabs media attention and is truly galling.
