Glossary

Completed violence - The sum of all completed rapes, sexual assaults, robberies, and assaults. See individual crime types for definitions of completed crimes.

Attempted/threatened violence - The unsuccessful attempt of rape, sexual assault, personal robbery, or assault. Includes attempted attacks or sexual assaults by means of verbal threats. See individual crime types for definitions of attempted crimes.

Rape/sexual assault, personal robbery, or aggravated assault. Includes attempted and completed crimes. Murder is not measured by the NCVS because of an inability to question the victim. Traditionally called serious violent victimization.

Rape—Includes forcible intercourse, sodomy, or penetration with a foreign object. It does not include statutory rape or nonforcible acts with a minor or someone unable to give legal consent, nonviolent sexual offenses, or commercialized sex offenses.

Robbery—Includes unlawful taking of anything of value by force or threat of force. It includes armed, unarmed, and aggravated robbery, carjacking, armed burglary, and armed mugging.

Assault—Includes aggravated assault, aggravated battery, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, felony assault or battery on a law enforcement officer, and other felony assaults. It does not include extortion, coercion, or intimidation.

Other violent offenses—Includes vehicular manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, negligent or reckless homicide, nonviolent or nonforcible sexual assault, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, child or spouse abuse, cruelty to a child, reckless endangerment, hit-and-run with bodily injury, intimidation, and extortion.

Rape/sexual assault, personal robbery, aggravated assault, or simple assault. Includes attempted and completed crimes. Excludes personal theft/larceny. Murder is not measured by the NCVS because of an inability to question the victim. Violent victimizations measure crimes against persons. Each time a person is affected by a violent crime, it is counted as a single victimization.

A measure of whether a weapon was present during the victimization. The respondent is asked whether the offender had a weapon. Weapons include items such as guns, knives, and other objects that are used as weapons (e.g., rocks and clubs). This applies only to personal victimizations where there was contact between the victim and the offender. By definition, neither simple assault nor personal theft involves a weapon.

Users can obtain information about the type of weapon. The data visualization tool uses this coding for weapon type:

• No weapon
• Firearm
• Knife
• Other weapon type
• Unknown weapon type
• Don’t know if offender had weapon