This chapter will focus on violent behaviour in early 21st century Britain. However, 'violence' is clearly a dynamic concept that varies greatly across time and place. In a different century the violent actions routinely condemned in modern Britain might not have been illegal - indeed, might even have been encouraged - domestic abuse being a case in point. Wood (2004: 23) noted that in 18th century England, 'Violence was not merely a reluctantly acknowledged 'fact of life': rather, the early modern state, community and home were all arenas in which violence was an accepted - indeed, an expected - means of expressing legitimate social power'.