It is useful to place interpersonal violence in the context of crime levels as a whole. The Home Office annual report on crime refers to the British Crime Survey (BCS) and to crime recorded by the police:

We focus here on assault and battery, and on the three main general offences under the Offences against the Person Act 1861: actual bodily harm (s. 47), malicious wounding (s. 20), and causing grievous bodily harm with intent (s. 18). The somewhat imperfect hierarchy of the 1861 Act reflects both differences in the seriousness of injury or harm and in the mental element. The government initially endorsed the codified set of offences based on the Law Commission's proposals in Report No 218 (1993) but as yet no legislation has been introduced (Home Office 1998).