Defining and Registering Criminal Offences and Measures - Oapen

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Bodily Injury (Assault)
these forms of behavior from the data. 6 out of 10 responding countries are also
able to identify assault leading to death separately in criminal law.
6. Conclusion
The results show that the reform of the assault/bodily injury definition was quite
successful. The introduction of the new subgroup of aggravated assault seems to
be useful. According to the results on definitions and data availability, the concept
of aggravated assault might be more comparable across Europe than the basic
assault concept. However, the rule to exclude assault leading to death was not
always easily followed. It might be useful to revisit the issue of differentiation
between homicide and bodily injury offences in future editions of the ESB. One
possibility might be to have a separate category for assault leading to
death/manslaughter.
The study also showed that for “basic” assault, concepts vary wildly even for
continental Europe. Although continental definitions usually do not include
threats, actual injury is not required in many countries, causing pain is sufficient.
Based on the results of this study, the pros and cons of a change to a broader
assault definition should be discussed.