Crimes Against Persons in the United States: Types and Laws
This paper examines the major categories of crimes committed against persons in the United States, drawing on FBI data and Department of Justice statistics. It defines and distinguishes offenses including assault, aggravated assault, murder, rape, harassment, hate crimes, kidnapping, and domestic violence. For each crime type, the paper discusses legal definitions, notable statistics, and the federal or state laws enacted to prosecute offenders and protect victims. The paper concludes that while existing legislation has provided meaningful avenues for justice, further strengthening of these mechanisms is necessary to drive crime rates to their lowest possible levels.
- Introduction: Scope of violent crime in the US
- Assault and Aggravated Assault: Definitions, statistics, and penalties for assault
- Murder and Its Classifications: First-degree, second-degree murder, and manslaughter
- Sexual Violence and Rape: Rape statistics and governing law
- Harassment, Hate Crimes, and Kidnapping: Federal protections against stalking and kidnapping
- Domestic Violence: Domestic abuse laws and impact on women
- Conclusion: Summary of findings and call for stronger enforcement
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What makes this paper effective
- Each crime category follows a consistent structure — definition, supporting statistics, and applicable law — making the paper easy to follow and compare across types.
- The paper integrates concrete data (e.g., 89,000 average annual rape reports, 15,600 murder cases in 2015) to ground legal definitions in real-world context.
- The introduction establishes clear scope by naming both the typology of crimes and the dual focus on characteristics and laws, setting up reader expectations effectively.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates systematic categorical analysis: it organizes a broad topic (violent crime) into discrete, well-defined subtypes and applies the same analytical lens — definition, prevalence, legal response — to each. This parallel structure is a reliable technique for survey-style research papers and allows readers to compare across categories without losing their place in the argument.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with national-level FBI trend data to establish context, then moves through six crime categories in separate body paragraphs. Each paragraph introduces a definition, provides at least one statistical reference, and identifies the governing law and its penalties. A brief conclusion synthesizes the findings and flags the gap between existing legislation and full crime elimination. References follow in MLA format.
Introduction
The United States is one of the world's superpowers, yet like any other country it faces the persistent challenge of crimes committed against persons. The FBI has reported that the rate of violent crimes in the US has been declining for the past two decades. Violent crimes can be classified into types that include rape, murder, aggravated assault, and robbery. Statistically, the rate of crimes committed against persons in 2016 decreased by 1.1% compared with those reported in 2015. The rates of these crimes vary across regions. For example, the FBI reported that in 2016 there was a positive change in the murder rate of 2.0% in the Northeast region and 1.2% in the Midwest (Federal Bureau of Investigation). This paper examines the different types of crimes committed against persons in the US, their characteristics, and the laws that have been established to address them.
Assault and Aggravated Assault
According to Stich (32), crimes against persons refer to those crimes that involve harm to the human body, threat to the human body, or actions carried out contrary to one's will. They can be classified into several types, including assault, aggravated assault, harassment, hate crimes, kidnapping, stalking, murder, domestic violence, and child abuse, among others.
Assault is committed when an individual attempts to strike another person physically or acts in a way that threatens that person's life. Aggravated assault occurs when an individual attempts to cause, or does cause, severe injury to another person, or causes severe injury using a deadly weapon. Battery is defined as the intentional and harmful touching of an individual without their consent. In 2015, the rate of assault and aggravated assault in the US was 230 cases per 100,000 people (Stevens 14). This represented a considerable decline from 240 cases per 100,000 people in 2010. The US government has enacted Assault Law to provide justice to victims of assault and aggravated assault. Assault is punishable by imprisonment of up to one year and fines, while aggravated assault is considered more serious and carries a sentence of 10 to 20 years' imprisonment and/or fines.
Works Cited
Department of Justice. "Rape Statistics." US Department of Justice, n.d. Web. 14 June 2017.
Douglas, John, and Mark Olshaker. The Cases That Haunt Us. Simon and Schuster, 2012.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, January–June 2016." FBI, n.d. Web. 14 June 2017.
Stevens, Dennis J. An Introduction to American Policing. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2017.
Stich, Captain Rodney. DOJ-Judicial Crimes Against the People. Silverpeak Publisher, 2014.
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