Measurement, Interpersonal Violence

There are many different definitions of interpersonal violence. For example, some include inflicting verbal or emotional harm as violence, while others do not. Some specify that intent to cause harm by the perpetrator be present, while others do not. The National Academy of Sciences defines interpersonal violence as any behavior by an individual that intentionally threatens, attempts, or inflicts physical harm on others.

It is also helpful to classify acts of interpersonal violence into subtypes. One distinction is between instrumental and expressive acts of violence. Instrumental acts of violence are those in which violence is a means to an end, such as an armed robbery. The threat of force or actual use of force in cases of robbery is used to help accomplish the robbery, but it is not an end in and of itself. Expressive acts of violence, on the other hand, are those in which the motivations are expressive of some emotional state, such as anger or jealousy. In these cases, the violence serves to fulfill some internal or intrinsic desire. As the name implies, the violence is expressing something. Acts of interpersonal violence can also be categorized into different crime types, such as homicide, rape, robbery, and assault.

Acts of interpersonal violence are often private and hidden, such as violence that occurs in the home. As such, estimating the magnitude of interpersonal violence is difficult. For many reasons, including the stigma attached to some types of violence such as rape and intimate partner (e.g., spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend) violence, the fear of perpetrators retaliating, and numerous other safety concerns, estimating incidence rates of interpersonal violence has always been difficult. Scholars, policymakers, and activists alike typically rely on a number of different sources of data for information on the nature and scope of interpersonal violence, but each has its own strengths and weaknesses.