Although assaults have declined significantly in the past decade, millions of these crimes occur each year.  Victimization varies in important ways, both by sex and by ethnicity. Males experience more assaults by strangers, and females experience more assaults by intimate partners and other people known to them. American Indian or Alaska Natives, blacks, and Hispanics experience higher rates of assault than whites or Asian or Pacific Islanders.

• In 2011, 61 percent of all serious violent crimes were reported to the police. ⁽¹⁾
• The percent of aggravated assault victimizations reported to the police in 2011 was 67 percent, while the percent of reported simple assaults was 43 percent. ⁽²⁾
• In cases in 2011 where victims indicated their relationship to the offender, males experienced aggravated assault by a non-stranger (including intimate partner, other relative, and friend/acquaintance) in 39 percent of cases and by a stranger in 61 percent. Females experienced aggravated assault by a non-stranger in 63 percent of cases and by a stranger in 37 percent of cases. ⁽³⁾
• In reported cases, females are more likely than males to experience assault by an intimate partner. In aggravated assaults, male victims reported that the offender was an intimate partner in 6.7 percent of incidents, whereas females reported an intimate partner offender in 26.8 percent of cases. ⁽⁴⁾ 
• From 2002 to 2011, the rate of aggravated assault reported by victims against persons age 12 years or older declined by 28 percent. The rate in 2011 had declined to 2.7 incidents per 1,000 persons; in 2002 it was 3.8 per 1,000 persons. ⁽⁵⁾

 1 Jennifer L. Truman and Michael Planty, Criminal Victimization, 2011, (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 2012), 8, accessed September 3, 2013, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv11.pdf.

2 Ibid.

3 Calculated from Bureau of Justice Statistics, Number of Aggravated Assaults by Sex and Victim-Offender Relationship, 2011, generated using the NCVS Victimization Analysis Tool, accessed September 6, 2013,

4 Calculated from Bureau of Justice Statistics, Number of Aggravated Assaults by Sex and Victim-Offender Relationship, 2011, generated using the NCVS Victimization Analysis Tool, accessed September 6, 2013, http://www.bjs.gov/index. cfm?ty=nvat.

5 Truman and Planty, Criminal Victimization, 2011, 9.