Strangulation and Undercriminalization

It seems to be something of a truism these days that there are too many criminal laws, and too many new criminal laws being created.  There is much that is sensible about the claims of overcriminalization; I'd recommend especially the (as usual) superb and thoughtful treatment by Doug Husak, Overcriminalization: The Limits of Criminal Law as well as a piece I think I've recommended before here by David Skeel and the late William Stuntz, Christianity and the (Modest) Rule of Law.

But not all new criminal laws are evidence of fatuous overcriminalization, even new laws which are used with frequency.  The offense (though of course not the act) of strangulation is a comparatively new phenomenon in criminal law.  New York passed its strangulation law in 2010, as did 13 other states.  The New York law creates three offenses, a misdemeanor and two felonies (classes C and D), and it is an important development in the law of domestic violence.  As this story explains (behind a pay wall, unfortunately), many victims of domestic violence state that they have been strangled at least once by their partner, but because strangulation often leaves no visible injury -- even when a victim has been strangled severely and near the point of death -- assailants generally could not be charged with anything more than harassment or some kind of simple assault.  The laws available did not accurately reflect the specific nature of the harm and threatened harm involved in strangulation.  Since the law's passage in New York and elsewhere, it has been used frequently, filling an undercriminalized gap.