Violence
Violence is a general term to describe behavior, usually deliberate, that causes or intends to causeinjury to people, animals, or non-living objects. Violence is often associated with aggression. There are essentially two kinds of violence: random violence, which describes small-scale acts of random or targeted violence, and coordinated violence, which describes actions carried out by sanctionedor unsanctioned violent groups, such as war and terrorism.
Certain forms of violence are socially and legally sanctioned, others consist of crimes within a society. Different societies apply different standards relating to approved and non-approved forms of violence. Sometimes violence that is not accepted by a society's norms is called cruel.
Violence can be unilateral, while fighting implies a reaction, at least a defensive one.
The psychologist James W. Prescott performed a study about the cause of violence in theanthropological sense.
Aggravated assault
Aggravated assault is a form of violent crime.
In many jurisdictions, a person has committed an aggravated assault when he:
• attempts to cause serious bodily injury to another person; or
• causes such injury purposely, knowingly, or recklessly in circumstances where the person has exhibited indifference to human life; or
• attempts or causes bodily injury to another person with a deadly weapon.
Aggravated assault is usually differentiated from simple assault by intent to murder, the extent of the injury to the victim, or use of a deadly weapon, although legal definitions vary between jurisdictions.Sentences for aggravated assault are generally more severe, reflecting the greater degree of harm or malice intended by the perpetrator.
Assault
Assault is the crime of violence against another person. In some jurisdictions (e.g. Australia), assault is used to refer to the actual violence, while in other jurisdictions (e.g. some in the United States, England and Wales), assault refers only to the threat of violence, while the actual violence isbattery. Simple assaults do not involve weapons; aggravated assaults do.
Assault is often defined to include not only violence, but any physical contact with another person without their consent. When assault is defined like this, exceptions are provided to cover such things as normal social intercourse (for example, patting someone on the back).
English law makes distinctions based on the degree of injury, between:
• common assault (which can be even the most minor assault)
• assault with actual bodily harm (ABH)
• assault with grievous bodily harm (GBH)
In some jurisdictions, consent is a defence to assault, while in other jurisdictions (most notablyEngland) it is not. This can have important consequences when dealing with issues such assadomasochistic sexual activity. In England, several men have been successfully convicted of assault for engaging in sadomasochistic activities, even though the activity was consensual; the most notable case being the Operation Spanner case.
Assault and battery
Assault and battery is the combination of two violent crimes: assault (the threat of violence) andbattery (actual physical violence). This legal distinction only exists in jurisdictions that distinguish assault as threatened violence rather than actual violence.
Atrocity
An atrocity (from the Latin atrox, "atrocious", from Latin ater = "matte black" (as distinct from niger = "shiny black")) is a term used to describe crimes ranging from an act committed against a single person to one committed against a population or ethnic group.
In general use, an atrocity or massacre designates a politically or ethnically motivated killing of civilians. In international law, more precise terms are war crime and crime against humanity.
An atrocity can be a single specific event, or a series of events, or can refer to genocide. The defining characteristic of an atrocity is its brutal or systematic nature. It is an act of killing that is in violation of most traditional moral principles, although some societies do not condemn such behavior. Often, hostilities exceed the legitimate mandate of killing enemy combatants to include attacks upon unarmed or otherwise non-combative peoples. Thus, nearly every culture has in its history acts of killing which are atrocities.
Battery (crime)
In many common law jurisdictions, the crime of battery involves an injury or other contact upon theperson of another in a manner likely to cause bodily harm.
Contact prohibited by laws against battery has lately been understood to include bodily secretions being directed at another person without their permission, and in such cases depending on the system is automatically considered aggravated battery.
As a first approximation to the distinction between battery and assault:
• the overt behavior of an assault might be A advancing upon B by chasing after him and swinging a fist at his head, while
• that of an act of battery might be A actually striking B.
