Violent crimes are as old as human history. They have evolved alongside human evolution. Also known as crimes of violence, these crimes involve using force to offend the victim. In legal definition, the objective of the offender is to commit a violent act. They also include actions in which the offender uses violence “as a means to end”. Therefore, the term violent crime refers to a wide range of criminal acts such as murder, rape, assault, robbery, blackmail, extortion and abduction. The purpose of this paper is to discuss violent crimes in form of assault and battery, aggravated assault, homicide and rape.
Assault and battery are some of the most common forms of violent crimes.
In common law, an assault is an action that inflicts physical harm on the victim using violence. On the other hand, an act of battery is the physical injury on a person in an unlawful manner, regardless of its intensity. For courts to determine whether an action amounts to assault, they must consider the act that was used and not a mere menace. There must be enough reasons to believe that the act could have caused injury if there was no interruption or diversion. However, if the victim had made a real consent, then the act does not amount to violent crime.
In common law, an aggravated violence is an action that involves an offender attacking the victim with an aim of inflicting physical injury. The use weapon or any material is a common way of determining whether an act amounts to an aggravated assault.
According to a legal definition, rape is any unlawful carnal knowledge or sexual intercourse with a female human using force and without the consent of the victim. It involves carnal penetration, regardless of the degree of penetration. The term consent includes any form of conscious acceptance of the act, regardless of the reluctance or persistence. However, age is a determining factor because under-aged persons are considered unable to make consents. Thus, any act of penetrating an underage person amounts to rape.
Homicide is one of the most common and old forms of violent crime. Homicide is simply the act of killing a person. Different forms of homicide are considered under the common law. While some forms of homicide are justifiable or excusable, any act of killing a person with an intention to do so or cause harm is a felony. For instance, acts of criminal or felonious killing of a person amount to murder or manslaughter. For an act to qualify as a homicide, the death of the victim must result from the act or failure to act. However, any act of killing a person sentenced to death is excusable and not a felony. In addition, killing a person by a peace officer to prevent occurrence of crime is excusable.
On the other hand, in manslaughter, the intention of the offender is not to kill the victim, but death results from the action. To qualify as manslaughter, an action must show evidence that the offender did not have malevolence implied or expressed when taking the action.
Some forms of manslaughter are voluntary while others are involuntary. Voluntary manslaughter occurs in cases where the offender was greatly provoked to reasonable excite the passion to cause death on the victim. Involuntary manslaughter occurs in cases where homicide is committed without an intention but with no excuse. For instance, an illegal fight between two persons that results in one of them is an involuntary manslaughter.