NCJ Number
90488
Journal
Schriftenreihe der Polizei-Fuehrungsakademie Issue: 3 Dated: (1981) Pages: 249-270
Date Published
1981
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This article assesses the extent of assault and battery incidents; characteristics of the offenses, the offenders and victims; the cause of violence; and prevention as well as repression strategies.
Abstract
It cites statistics from West German police and court records for 1979. While 13 percent of all court convictions were for crimes involving bodily injury, police records indicated that assault crimes comprised only 4.8 percent of all recorded crime. These data reflect the high clearance rates for assault crimes. Female participation in violent crime, according to police records, amounts to 11 percent, although women constitute about 40 percent of known child abusers. Foreigner participation in violent crime has risen by 120 percent since 1963, with populations of over 500,000 have violent assault rates twice as high as the country as a whole. Men are the victims of assault and battery crimes far more frequently than women. Criminal justice processing in assault and battery incidents should remain selective, based on the severity of injury and consequences to the victim; alternative dispute settlement is preferable in less severe cases. Prevention of violent behaviors must be pursued through socialization. However, as long as violent confrontation remains the acceptable manner of expressing anger and disagreement in some subcultures of the society, assault and battery incidents will continue. Tabular data and 19 references are given.