Arizona: Domestic violence charge doesn’t require physical contact

Article here. Excerpt:

'A person wrongfully strikes a stranger and is charged with assault. Another person wrongfully strikes someone with whom he has an intimate or close relationship. While the basic act is the same, the person in the second incident is charged with domestic violence assault, and the situation is more serious and may require greater attention in order to protect the victim and change the behavior of the offender. The Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence defines domestic violence as “a pattern of coercive control that one person exercises over another.” When the coercive control is also a crime, our laws treat the incident very seriously.
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Besides a relationship, there must be an underlying crime. Most criminal offenses qualify as domestic violence, i.e., disorderly conduct, assault, threatening and intimidating, stalking, criminal damage, criminal trespass, harassment, and animal cruelty. Theft is about the only common offense which cannot be charged as domestic violence. Defendants arrested for a domestic violence often complain, “I didn’t hurt anyone,” but physical contact is not required for an incident to be charged as domestic violence.'