Introduction to Crimes of Violence

Violent crimes, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, include rape and sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and homicide. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report categorizes violent crime as murder or non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes involve either the actual or the threatened use of aggressive force against a victim. A crime of violence can be perpetrated either with or without the use of a weapon. It can also be an end in and of itself, as in a murder, rape, or sexual assault intentionally committed upon an individual, or a part of another crime, such as aggravated assault and homicide committed during a robbery.

Under United States laws, assault is a violent crime that need not necessarily involve physical contact: in some cases of simple assault, it is sufficient for one person to make a menacing gesture, or to use threatening words, against another. In some jurisdictions, a simple assault can occur when one person either intends or threatens to injure someone, or when he actually does physical harm to another human being, either with or without employing a weapon that can potentially cause serious or fatal injury. Aggravated assault occurs when there is serious or fatal injury attempted or inflicted upon another, with "callous or reckless disregard" for the value of human life.

People are simultaneously intrigued and horrified by violent crime. They are drawn to an image of "Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow" and horrified by the baffling murder of five children by their mother as detailed in "NOW Will Raise Funds for Yates' Legal Defense".

There is often an intense desire to seek to understand the motives and characteristics of those responsible for carnage, which are rarely satisfactorily explained, either by the alleged criminals or by the justice system. As evidenced by the "Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" and "Ruby Shoots Oswald; Photographic Evidence of the Moment of Crime" violence often leaves unanswered questions as to motive.

This chapter will explore various aspects of crimes of violence, from an "Illustration Depicting Jack the Ripper Attacking a Woman" to consideration of modern serial killers such as Ted Bundy ("Theodore Robert Bundy, AKA Ted Bundy—Fugitive"). The chapter also depicts the inanity of violence as expressed in the phenomena of football (soccer) hooliganism depicted in "County Road Cutters"