A violent crime or crime of violence is a crime in which the offender uses or threatens to use violent force upon the victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, as well as crimes in which violence is the means to an end, (including criminal ends) such as robbery. Violent crimes include crimes committed with and without weapons. With the exception of rape (which accounts for 6% of all reported violent crimes), males are the primary victims of all forms of violent crime.[1]
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The comparison of violent crime statistics between countries is usually problematic, due to the way different countries classify crime.[2] Valid comparisons require that similar offences between jurisdictions be compared. Often this is not possible because crime statistics aggregate equivalent offences in such different ways that make it difficult or impossible to obtain a valid comparison.
The Australian Standard Offence Classification (ASOC)[3] document published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics does not have a single category for violent crime. Rather, violent crime is classified under a number of different categories that often indicate a range of both violent and non-violent behaviour. The categories include:[4]
Canada classifies homicides, attempted murder, all assaults, all sexual offences, abduction and robbery as violent crime.[5]
New Zealand's crime statistics [6][7] has a category for violence that includes homicides, kidnapping, abduction, robbery, assaults, intimidation, threats, and group assembly, while all sexual offences are shown in a separate category from violence.
Includes all violence against the person, sexual offences, and robbery as violent crime.[8]
The United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) counts five categories of crime as violent crimes: murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. According to BJS figures, the rate of violent crime victimization in the United States declined by more than two thirds between the years 1994 and 2009.[9] 7.9% of sentenced prisoners in federal prisons on September 30, 2009 were in for violent crimes.[10] 52.4% of sentenced prisoners in state prisons at yearend 2008 were in for violent crimes.[10] 21.6% of convicted inmates in jails in 2002 (latest available data by type of offense) were in for violent crimes.[11]