The author goes as far as to explain many crimes of violence within a framework of attachment behavior as the outcome of certain precipitating factors, such as victim characteristics and victim-offender relationships. Starting with the observation that many victim-offender relationships in criminal violence involve intimates or familiars, this paper argues that much socalled aggressive, homicidal, and assaultive behavior is an intense expression of the tendency to seek the proximity of familiar persons under conditions of stress, even when the individual toward whom the behavior is directed is the source of stress. The injuries suffered by the victim in the course of the behavior would then be the unplanned and unintended consequences of the perpetrator's attempts to make strong contact, although penetrating and sometimes lethal contact. It is further suggested that the stronger the offending individual's predisposition for attachment behavior, the greater the probability that injury will be inflicted fortuitously in the course of seeking contact. The paper critiques the subculture of violence theory that states that the lower classes, especially young, black males, condone, and even prescribe it, in response to aggressive provocation. Instead the paper suggests that such groups have a strong predisposition for attachment behavior. The theory does not apply to cases where an act of violence is premeditated and carried out cold-bloodedly to avoid detection. Sixty-six references are appended.