Crime Clock

• One Violent Crime occurs every 22.1 seconds
• One Aggravated Assault occurs every 35.5 seconds
• One Robbery occurs every 1.2 minutes
• One Forcible Rape occurs every 5.5 minutes
• One Murder occurs every 32.4 minutes
• One Property Crime occurs every 3.0 seconds
• One Larceny Theft occurs every 4.5 seconds
• One Burglary occurs every 14.7 seconds
• One Motor Vehicle Theft occurs every 25.3 seconds

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Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program

Crime Definitions

Crime - A crime is an act that violates a law of a government, nation-state, or jurisdiction, for which there is no successful defense.

Violent Crime - A violent crime or crime of violence is a crime in which the offender uses or threatens violent force upon the victim. This entails both crimes in which the violent act is the objective, such as murder, as well as crimes in which violence is the means to an end, such as robbery. Violent crimes include crimes committed with and without weapons.

The United States Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) counts five categories of crime as violent crimes: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault.

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 is battery.

Simple Assault - Simple assaults do not involve weapons; aggravated assaults do.
Assault is often defined to include not only violence, but also 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).

Aggravated Assault - Aggravated assault is a form of violent crime.
In many jurisdictions, a person has committed an aggravated assault when he/she:

• 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.

Robbery - Robbery is the crime of seizing property through violence or intimidation, sometimes resulting in the murder of the victim. This is different from embezzlement, larceny, and theft. Piracy is a type of robbery. Armed robbery involves the use of a weapon. Highway robbery takes place outside and in a public place. Robbery is generally an urban crime. Carjacking is the act of stealing a car from a victim, usually at gunpoint.

Rape - In criminal law, the term “rape” refers to a sexual assault in which an offender forces an unconsenting victim to engage in sexual acts, primarily sexual intercourse.

Forcible Rape – The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program refers to forcible rape as only rapes against females, by males.

Murder - Murder is the crime of intentionally causing the death of another human being, without lawful excuse.

Larceny - Larceny is a crime. Under English common law, larceny consisted of (1) a taking (2) and carrying away (3) of tangible personal property (4) of another (5) by trespass (6) with intent to permanently deprive.

In most of the United States the common law definitions of certain crimes have been modified. Quite often the general crime of theft has replaced larceny, and most related common law and statutory crimes such as embezzlement, false pretenses, robbery, and receipt of stolen property.
Larceny by Trick occurs when the victim of larceny is tricked by a misrepresentation of fact into giving up possession of property. This should not be confused with false pretenses, where the victim is tricked into giving up title to the property.

Grand larceny is typically defined as larceny of a significant amount of property, in the US this is often defined as an amount valued at $200 or more.

Theft - Theft (known in some jurisdictions as stealing) is in general unlawfully taking someone else's property. In law, it is usually the broadest term for a crime against property. It is a general term that encompasses offences such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, and sometimes criminal conversion. Legally, theft is generally considered to be synonymous with larceny.

In the common law theft is usually defined as the unauthorised taking or use of someone else's property with the intent to deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use.

As with other common law crimes, it is composed of two elements, the actus reus — the unauthorized taking or use — and the intent to deprive — the mens rea. Thus if one goes to a restaurant and by accident one takes someone else's hat or scarf instead of one's own hat or scarf, one has deprived someone of the use of their property and has taken the other person's property in an unauthorized manner, but without the intent to deprive the person (hum, this is a much nicer scarf than mine or he'll never notice the spot on the hat until he gets home) there is no criminal act (actus reus) and thus no crime. Note that there may be civil liability, by depriving someone of their property you may be liable for damages in a civil court, but without proof of your intent to deprive, no criminal act has occurred.

Burglary - Burglary is a crime related to theft.

In the United States burglary is a felony and involves trespassing, or entering a building with intent to commit any crime, not necessarily a felony or theft. Thus a conviction for burglary may qualify as a conviction under a three strikes law or habitual criminal law, even though only something of low value or nothing at all was stolen.

Laws in many jurisdictions impose much harsher penalties for burglaries committed or attempted at night, or upon an occupied residence. Burglary laws in some jurisdictions also encompass certain types of shoplifting.

Motor Vehicle Theft - Motor vehicle theft is a crime of theft. This is generally understood to refer to the stealing of automobiles, buses, motorcycles, snowmobiles, trucks, and the like; but not to aircraft, boats, bulldozers, and spacecraft.

In almost all jurisdictions, theft of a motor vehicle is punishable as a felony due to the extreme emotional and economic distress it causes to the victim and to society.

Colloquially, stealing a motor vehicle while it is occupied by its owner or authorized user is known as carjacking, and is in many legal systems treated as a form of robbery. Stealing a motor vehicle to ride and then abandon it is known as joyriding.

In order to prevent motor vehicle theft, most jurisdictions require that the vehicle identification numbers (VIN in North America) of motor vehicles be registered with a vehicle licensing authority, making it difficult to resell a stolen vehicle. Most motor vehicle theft involves dismantling the vehicle and selling its parts which are not registered and for which there is a large market, or by moving the vehicle to another country, such as Mexico, that does not have access to the same database, or by sea to the former Soviet Union or some other place that has weak customs controls.

Source: wordIQ.com

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