Assault

Trends in Assaults

Figure 1 gives NCVS rates of simple and aggravated assaults per 1,000 persons over the age of twelve from 1973 through 2000.

Figure 1. Victimization Rates per 1,000: Simple and Aggravated Assaults.

Bureau of Justice Statistics (2001).

The most common violent crime measured by the NCVS is simple assault. Figure 1 shows a decline in the simple assault rate from 1979 through 1989, an increase to 1994, and a substantial decline by 2001. At its highest point (1994), the rate was 31.5 per 1,000 persons; by 2000, it had declined to 17.8.

Aggravated assaults followed a similar pattern but with less pronounced year-to-year variation. Aggravated assaults peaked in 1993 (12.0) and began to decline one year later (11.9). By 2000, aggravated assaults had decreased to 5.7 per 1,000 persons.

The decline in assaults is part of a broader decline in violent crime in the United States. According to Rennison (2001), violent victimization declined 15 percent from 32.8 per 1,000 to 29.1 per 1,000 from 1999 to 2000. Whereas sexual assaults declined the most −37.5 percent—in the period, simple and aggravated assaults declined between 14 percent and 15 percent. Because homicides and assaults are closely related, research on the decline of homicide rates may be applicable to declines in asaults. Thus, one factor accounting for the decline in homicides is the increased number of incarcerated offenders in the past few years (Blumstein and Rosenfeld 1998; Blumstein and Wallman 2000).

Gender, Age, Race/Ethnicity, Income, and Marital Status

Table 1 gives characteristics of assault victims from the 2000 NCVS. It shows that males are predominantly victims in aggravated assaults (8.3) in comparison to females (3.2). In simple assaults, females (15.8) are more similar to males (19.9), although males continue to have a higher rate.

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