1998 Annual Report
Assault
Aggravated Assault describes an unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. This type of assault is usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by means likely to produce death or great bodily harm. Attempts are included since it is not necessary that injury result when a gun, knife, or other weapon is used which could and probably would result in serious personal injury if the crime were successfully completed.
Unlike murder, robbery, and other violent crime, assault is born
in the heat of the moment. The motivation behind an assault is
rarely personal gain, and the offender often later regrets the
incident. Perhaps the most preventable violent crime, many
assaults in the making are probably curtailed through the careful
use of control and restraint.
However, assault is a very serious crime because of the great risk of critical injury to the victim. Very often, blind luck or quick medical attention is all that separates an aggravated assault from a homicide.
Between 1984 and 1989, assault registered about 350 incidents per year; in 1990, it suddenly jumped 41 percent to an unprecedented 614 reports. It peaked at 643 in 1993; since then, it has declined each year. 1998's statistic is the lowest since 1989.
A good portion of these fluctuations can be attributed to the frequency of which the crime is reported rather than the frequency of its actual occurrence. As domestic violence awareness has increased over the last decade, so has the willingness of domestic violence victims to report abuse to the police.
Despite advances made by domestic violence victim advocates in recent years, experts estimate that between 60 and 80 percent of domestic assaults are never reported to the police. Very likely, apathy, fear of police contact, embarrassment, and other factors also lead to underreporting of alcohol related fights, assaults between acquaintances, gang fights, and conflicts among the homeless. The result is that assault statistics must be viewed with extreme care.
Assault Classifications
A chart and graph of aggravated assault classifications over the past two years appears on the next page. This year, 24% were domestic in nature-a percentage consistent with past years. An analysis of domestic assaults and other crimes appears in the Domestic Crimes section of this report.
The second highest category was "unprovoked" assaults-that is, assaults between strangers that have no apparent cause or reason; for instance, someone "comes out of nowhere" and beats a victim walking down the street. This category total should be considered with care. Victims are often reluctant to divulge their relationship to their attacker, or to admit to their own participation in a fight. The decision to categorize an assault as "unprovoked" is made by examining the victim's statements at the time of report.
"Unprovoked"
aggravated assaults were most likely to take place between 6:00
p.m. and midnight, on the street, in Central Square (12) or
Harvard Square (12) or in between the two (10). Inman Square also
reported 12 incidents. Victims were likely to be intoxicated
(25%) or young men between 16 and 22 (29%). Some of the victims
reported that they were just walking down the street when
attacked, but others resulted from insignificant verbal
confrontations: "You can't walk your dog there,"
"You're making too much noise," "Why are you
looking at me?" and so on. Half a dozen of these reports
were BBs fired from windows at pedestrians;
another half dozen involved rocks thrown at cars.
Acquaintance assaults run the gamut from friends to drinking buddies to schoolmates. Two types of acquaintance assaults-Workplace and Landlord/ Neighbor-are singled out as unique categorizations. The impetuses behind these acquaintance assaults are as varied as the locations and times at which they occur.
Retail/Patron assaults are a special kind of incident in which the patron of a establishment assaults a clerk or manager. These assaults are often linked to shoplifting; store employees attempting to detain a shoplifter are struck in the shoplifter's escape or attempt to escape.
Traffic/Parking assaults are a reflection of the "road rage" often discussed in today's news. One driver cuts off another, takes "someone else's" parking space, honks his horn, exchanges an offensive look or gesture, and suddenly someone is attacking with a tire iron or other weapon. We find that these assaults tend to increase in the winter, when some residents fight over the few parking spaces that are shoveled out.
Simple Assault
Simple assaults are not scored among the Part I Crimes. They do not involve the use of a weapon (including shoes) and are not intended to cause serious injury. Examples of simple assault include a shove, a punch in the stomach, or a slap in the face.
648 simple assaults were reported in 1998, showing a seven percent increase over the 606 reported in 1997. If lack of reporting is a problem for aggravated assaults, it is probably doubly so for simple assaults, since they do not by definition result in serious injury.
Simple assaults show significant differences in categorization from aggravated assaults. A high 43 percent of simple assaults are domestic in nature, compared to 24 percent of aggravated assaults. The next highest categorization, acquaintance assaults, weighed in at 13 percent or 81 incidents. Juvenile assaults accounted for seven percent, and traffic and parking and unprovoked assaults eight weighed in at six percent.