I’m struck by the claim that “assault (albeit not specifically aggravated assault) is the worst-recalled crime in the survey”. Assault (unwanted physical contact) does seem like it might be difficult to recall. But aggravated assault (assault “usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by other means likely to produce death or great bodily harm”) seems like it might be exceptionally easy to recall.
I think the problem specifically with aggravated assault (vs battery) is Wittgenstein’s Poker situations. Someone who survived getting shot or stabbed most likely remembers it fine. But for a large fraction of incidents classified as aggravated assault, involving ambiguous threat-with-weapon situations where someone brandished a knife, waved a bottle, or made a threatening gesture with an object, the victim’s own categorization of what happened may be legitimately uncertain and vary with their subsequent construal of the other party.
I’m struck by the claim that “assault (albeit not specifically aggravated assault) is the worst-recalled crime in the survey”. Assault (unwanted physical contact) does seem like it might be difficult to recall. But aggravated assault (assault “usually accompanied by the use of a weapon or by other means likely to produce death or great bodily harm”) seems like it might be exceptionally easy to recall.
(Quoting from the definition of aggravated assault used in the FBI’s dataset, https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/aggravated-assault )
I think the problem specifically with aggravated assault (vs battery) is Wittgenstein’s Poker situations. Someone who survived getting shot or stabbed most likely remembers it fine. But for a large fraction of incidents classified as aggravated assault, involving ambiguous threat-with-weapon situations where someone brandished a knife, waved a bottle, or made a threatening gesture with an object, the victim’s own categorization of what happened may be legitimately uncertain and vary with their subsequent construal of the other party.