Victims of Violence

"Violent crime rates declined since 1994, reaching the lowest level ever recorded in 2004." (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm) This is very encouraging but there is still way too much violence in our world today. Violence effects our everyday lives; but lets get a better idea of what exactly violence is. " Violence refers to acts -typically connotative with aggressive and criminal behavior -which intend to cause or is causing of injury to persons, animals, or (in limited cases) property. The concept of "violence" can also be extended to any abuse, including even non-physical verbal abuse. Damage to property is typically considered minor relative to violence against persons." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence) Now that everyone is on the same page of what violence is it should be easy to understand why we have such a major problem today with violence.

"Violence is a widespread and growing problem in practically all societies. It takes many forms, and occurs in all settings: at work, in the home, in the streets and the community at large." It affects both males and females of all ages, particularly young people. (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hcpds/wpweb/gender/garcia.html) Violence and violent crimes have been apart of everyone's life but effect people differently. When taking a closer look at these crimes it somewhat difficult to get accurate statistics, and information; because a lot of time in the cases of violence it goes unreported. When the reports are not accurate it gives you skewed view of the truth. Most violent crimes are extremely atrocious and as a result there is bodily harm which in most of those cases, it is reported, but not all the time. From children, to adults, even the community that you live, all have been a victims of violence at some point in time. Some ethnic group or age groups are affected differently but still affected. In this paper we will take a look at different aspects of our world, like age groups, genders, and our community to see what is the types of violence that they fall victim to.

The first age group that I am going to look deeper onto their victimization is infants. Because infants are completely reliant on adults they find themselves to be the most vulnerable individuals in our society. Even though society does trust adults to take care of them they still fall victims to violence. Kidnapping is at the top of the list when it comes to crimes that are committed against infants. Compare to other age groups infants are kidnapped twice as much. Another violent crime that infants fall victim to be simple assault which in a lot of cases is discovered to late. When infants are abused it is up to a adult to take the abused child to doctor if the infant is severely hurt; in most cases the abuser is not going to bring the child to the doctor if they know they are responsible for the bodily harm on the child. Other crimes like aggravated assault and sexual assault are considered types of abuse or mistreatment.

More serious crimes that infants fall victim to are manslaughter and murder. Also another serious crime that infants fall victim to is shaken baby syndrome. This is a serious crime when it comes to infants because it can be cause intentionally, or unintentionally. An angry adult can easily bring serious bodily harm to infant that way. Almost all of these crimes come from adults, but sometimes they come from older children and juveniles. Juveniles and children are the next group I am going to talk about which happens to be the most victimized of all age groups. (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/special_reports/infant_victims.html)

"Juveniles are twice as likely as an adult to be victims of serious crimes and three times as likely to be victims of assault." This is a staggering statement that was made in the Juvenile Justice Bulletin but not all that surprising. Juveniles and children fall victim to most violence and violent crimes. Homicide is one of the major violent crimes that are committed on juveniles and children. "In 1997, the number of juvenile homicide victims was 2,087. The homicide rate was 3.0 per 100,000 person's ages 0 through 17, compared to 8.1 for adults. Eleven percent of the homicides in 1997 occurred in the 17 or younger age group."( http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/factsheet.html) "From 1985 to 1992, the homicide rate for 16-year-olds increased 138%, while the rate among 18-year-olds doubled, and the rate for 24-year-olds and above either remained the same or declined." (http://www.charactercounts.org/rskstats.htm) This is upsetting because the facts are showing that instead of the problem being fixed it is getting worst. A lot of children are being killed today and that is a major problem that needs to be dealt with. Another violent crime Children are at the greatest risk of is sexual assault. "In 1986, child sexual abuse cases were 16% of all reported cases. In 1998, child sexual abuse cases were 10% of all reported cases." Child neglect and mistreatment is also a serious crime against children like infants. "Neglect constitutes 54% of all substantiated cases. It is the most common type of reported and substantiated maltreatment." "The total number of children reported for suspicion of child abuse and neglect in 1998 was 3,154,000. This is a rate of 45 per 1,000 children." Sexual abuse which goes along with neglect and child mistreatment is; "In 1986, child sexual abuse cases were 16% of all reported cases. In 1998, child sexual abuse cases were 10% of all reported cases." Children also make up for 60% of reported rape victims. (http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/ohe/library/violence/statistics.htm)

Children fall victims to the most crimes and the fact of the matter is, it is not getting any better, it's getting worse. For similar reasons as infants, being so reliant on adults the leaves children open to predators. As they grow older and become juveniles and become less dependent this opens them up to be victims of more adult crimes like homicide.

Adults are the next most victimized age group that I am going to discuss. "In 2004, U.S. residents age 12 or older experienced approximately 24 million crimes, according to findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey. " (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm#summary). "The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports show that in 2004, 89% of murder victims were age 18 or older. Of all murder victims, 45% were 20 to 34 years old." When it comes to adults as victims they should really be broken down into two categories; males and females. It is true that males and females do fall victim to some of the same crimes, but there are still some crimes that are inflected more on one gender rather than the other.

When you think of crimes that women

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