Violent Crime

In 1929 the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program was begun by the Federal Bureau Investigation. It is the official crime data–gathering program covering the entire United States. The present UCR structure classifies Part I offenses [Page 774](also referred to as index crimes) into eight major offenses. Index Crimes are subdivided into two categories: violent personal crime and property crime. Violent crime consists of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR program as those offenses that involve force or the threat of force. Annual information about index crimes (both violent and property) appears each August in the UCR report Crime in the United States.

Murder and Nonnegligent Manslaughter. It is the willful (nonnegligent) killing of one human by another. The classification of this offense is based solely on the investigation by police. Any determination of a court, jury, medical examiner, or other judicial body does not change this classification.

Historically, murder is primarily an intraracial crime as the vast majority of black murder victims were murdered by black offenders and the vast majority of white murder victims were murdered by white offenders. Men are much more likely than women to murder and be murdered. Most homicides involve the use of handguns and other firearms and are among people who know each other. The dramatic rise in homicides in the United States from the 1980s to the early 1990s occurred due to murders in which both the killer and the victim were young black males. Scholars have offered a number of explanations for this peak in homicides, including (a) declining economic opportunities in inner cities are said to have increased despair; (b) increased drug trafficking in these areas because of declining economic opportunities; (c) the increased use of powerful firearms, which is associated with drug trafficking battles between gangs; and (d) a code of the street that arises from despair and encourages the use of violence in response to perceived disrespect.

Aggravated Assault. It is an unlawful attack by one person on another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. This type of assault is usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by other means likely to produce death or great bodily harm. Attempted aggravated assault that involves the display of or threat to use a gun, knife, or other weapon is included in this category because serious personal injury would likely result if the assault were completed. When aggravated assault and larceny/theft occur together, the offense falls under the category of robbery. The difference between murder and aggravated assault is a matter of the degree of injury. If the victim dies then it becomes a homicide. The same events that precipitate homicide are thought to cause assault. The typical assault is a relatively spontaneous event arising from a quarrel that gets out of hand and escalates into violence.

When considering the facts regarding homicide and assault, the United States has the highest violent crime rate among industrialized nations. Researchers have tended to see our involvement with violence over the long sweep of our history as having become part of our value structure. The United States is a country of confrontation, born of rebellion against authority, with a Wild West tradition of settling differences with guns. The cruelty of displacing Native Americans, slavery, indentured servitude, and violence against labor did much to further the proclivity to violence in the United States and to develop what some have called a subculture of violence. This, combined with a high level of structural inequality in U.S. society, creates the conditions for violence.

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