Law
Property Offences
Property offences refer to crimes that involve the unlawful interference with someone else's property. This can include theft, burglary, robbery, and vandalism. These offences are typically prosecuted as criminal acts and can result in legal consequences such as fines, imprisonment, or restitution to the victim.
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11 Key excerpts on "Property Offences"
eBook - ePub- Russil Durrant(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
We have, to this point in the textbook, focused largely on various forms of violent offending. Although violent crimes cause an enormous amount of harm in society, official police statistics remind us that they are not the most common type of offence (although victim surveys can tell us a somewhat different story). Indeed, various forms of economic or acquisitive offending make up the majority of offences recorded by police. For this reason, such offences are often referred to by criminologists as ‘volume crime’ (Newburn, 2013). Property crime, fairly straightforwardly, entails the illegal acquisition or destruction of property that is not owned by the individual. In this chapter we will consider research on a range of different types of property offending.We begin with an overview of the nature and extent of property offending in society and general theoretical approaches to understanding this form of crime. We then turn to a more detail discussion of specific types of property crime focusing, in turn, on burglary, shoplifting, vehicle-related theft, and arson. Although purely psychological approaches have had less impact in this area than for forms of violent crime, many of the explanations we have encountered so far also feature in explanations for property crime. Given the ubiquitous nature of property crime, clearly attempts to advance our understanding of this form of offending is important.THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF PROPERTY OFFENDING
What is property crime?
Humans are a devious species, and there are various ways that another person’s property can be acquired through illegal means. We have already discussed robbery, or the use of force to obtain property from others, in the chapter on violent offending so we will not revisit that topic here. Other forms of offending that involve the illegal acquisition of another’s property and resources such as fraud, embezzlement, and other instances of so-called white-collar crime are discussed in detail in the following chapter. Here, we confine ourselves to a relatively small range of ‘garden variety’ property crimes that, together, constitute a significant volume of all offences recorded by the police and hence are the focus of significant activity in the criminal justice system.Figure 9.1 The range of Property Offences.Different countries categorise Property Offences in different ways. In the United States, for example, the taking of property from someone else without their consent is referred to as larceny, with a distinction made between grand and petit larceny based on the value of the property taken (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2015). In Figure 9.1 the main forms of property offending that feature in the criminological literature are outlined, although these categories do not necessarily map cleanly on to specific legal distinctions in different countries. Very broadly, we can make a distinction between offending that involves the acquisition of property and offending that involves the destruction or harming of property. Burglary entails illegal entry into a property with the purpose of acquiring others’ resources or property. Shoplifting entails the acquisition of goods or property from a commercial enterprise without the use of force (when it becomes robbery). Motor vehicle theft involves the theft of cars, motorcycles, snowmobiles, and other forms of motorised transport and/or the theft of property from those vehicles. Other forms of illegal property acquisition include pocket picking, purse snatching, theft of bicycles, and so on. Some types of property offending involve the destruction of property rather than its acquisition, including arson, vandalism
eBook - ePub- Jonathan Herring(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Property OffencesSo far in this book we have primarily focused on offences against the person. Most people agree that offences against the person are more serious than offences against property. One important reason is that the harm in Property Offences in generally easily remedied. If someone steals your car, you can buy a new one. If someone chops your hand off, you cannot. That, however, may be too simplistic a point. Property can have great emotional value. If the family photograph album is stolen, it may not be easily replaced. Some Property Offences, especially burglary, can be traumatic and some victims take quite some time to recover.One interesting contrast between offences against the person and those against property is as follows. The offences against the person tend to focus on the gravity of the harm: did the case involve actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm? Whereas offences against property focus on the way the harm was done: was the property obtained by the use of fraud or force?THEFT
KEY STATUTE THEFT ACT 1968, SECTION 1Theft is one of the most common criminal offences. There are five elements of theft. D is guilty if he or she: • appropriates • property • belonging to another • dishonestly • with intent to permanently deprive. These elements will be considered in turn. ‘ … APPROPRIATES … ’A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it ...Appropriation involves ‘assuming the rights of an owner’. In other words it means that a person has treated the property in the way an owner would. The courts have made it clear that the defendant will have appropriated the property if he has exercised one of the rights of the owner. This means that the defendant will appropriate property if she moves it, eats it, sells it or throws it away.
eBook - ePubCriminal Law for Criminologists
Principles and Theory in Criminal Justice
- Noel Cross(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Chapter 5Property OffencesChapter overviewIntroduction Property Offences: the law Theft Vehicle theft Fraud Burglary Criminal damage Robbery Property Offences and criminal justice Theft and criminal justice Vehicle theft and criminal justice Fraud and criminal justice Burglary and criminal justice Criminal damage and criminal justice Robbery and criminal justice Conclusions: linking discussion to the roadmap theories Further readingChapter aimsAfter reading Chapter 5 , you should be able to understand:• The actus reus requirements, mens rea requirements, and available defences for the offences of theft, vehicle theft, fraud, burglary, criminal damage, and robbery in criminal law• How criminal justice responds to these types of Property Offences• How the evidence on these Property Offences in criminal law and criminal justice fits in with the roadmap theories introduced in Chapter 1IntroductionChapter 5 discusses the main types of criminal offences against property. This chapter explains the Property Offences of theft, vehicle theft, fraud, burglary, criminal damage, and robbery in terms of their legal definitions, before placing them in their criminal justice contexts.Property Offences: the lawTheftStatutory definition Theft is defined by the Theft Act 1968 s.1(1) as the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another person, with the intention to permanently deprive that other person of it.Actus reusThe actus reus of theft has three elements. The first is an ‘appropriation’. ‘Appropriation’ is defined by s.3(1) of the Theft Act as an assumption of the rights of the owner of the property. DPP v Gomez [1993] AC 442 decided that there can be an appropriation even where V consents to D taking their property, following Lawrence [1972] AC 626.Gomez also decided that an assumption of any (not all) of the property owner’s rights was enough to count as an appropriation. So what the law says is an appropriation is more than just taking someone’s property without their consent. Hinks
eBook - ePub- Routledge(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
5Offences against property
Theft Robbery Burglary Criminal damage Fraud Making off without payment Handling stolen goods This chapter concludes our analysis of particular offences by examining offences against property.(1) THEFT
Definition
The basic definition of theft is to be found in s 1(1) of the Theft Act 1968 , which provides that a person who:…dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of itis guilty of theft. Relevant sections of Theft Act 1968Actus reus
The actus reus of the offence is ‘appropriating property belonging to another’.Appropriation
Appropriation is defined in s 3(1) of the Theft Act 1968 asany assumption by a person or the rights of an owner.The phrase ‘any assumption by a person of the rights of an owner’ means that the thief has taken to himself rights which he does not have and is dealing with the property as if he was the legal owner.The term ‘the rights of the owner’ includes not only the owner’s right to ownership but also other rights he may have. It includes rights to possession or control, the right to use the property, to sell it, to give it away and so on.
eBook - PDF- Lawrence Atsegbua, Violet Aigbokhaevbo, Sunday Daudu(Authors)
- 2022(Publication Date)
- Malthouse Press(Publisher)
Chapter 10 Property Offences Property Offences Property Offences Property Offences THE OFFENCES OF THEFT THE OFFENCES OF THEFT THE OFFENCES OF THEFT THE OFFENCES OF THEFT Stealing Stealing Stealing Stealing Prior to the enactment of the Theft Act in England, 1968, the offence of larceny existed. It shared similar characteristics with the offence of theft. However, the offence of larceny no longer exists in the English Law having been outlawed by the Theft Act of 1968. In Nigeria, one may concede that the offence of theft in England bears similar features with the offence of stealing contained in section 390 of the Criminal Code. Section 1(1) of the English Theft Act of 1968 provides that a person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it. Section 7 of the Theft Act, however, provides punishment for the offences of theft thus: A person guilt of theft shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years. Section 383 of the Criminal Code provides that a person who fraudulently takes anything capable of being stolen, or fraudulently coverts to his own use or to the use of any other person anything capable of being stolen, is said to steal that thing. Property Offences 145 It should be noted that the mens rea of the offence of theft is dishonesty and intention permanently to deprive. The actus reus is appropriate property belonging to another. 1 Appropriation Appropriation Appropriation Appropriation In England, under the old Law of Larceny, the thing had to be carried away. Accordingly, land could not be stolen. The new word was “appropriation”, which it was hoped would be easily understood by the trials of fact. That hope has been dashed. Under the present law, an article can be stolen without being taken away.
eBook - PDFMurder and Mayhem
Crime in Twentieth-Century Britain
- David Nash, Anne-Marie Kilday(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
2 In 1968 the offence was redefined Serious Property Offending in the Twentieth Century 67 under the Theft Act, but the offence remained essentially the same as originally defined by common law. Like burglary, robbery has been long understood by the courts and by the general public as a serious offence which must be prosecuted in the higher courts on indictment. Robbery is the taking of property by force or threat of force. Indeed force or threat of use of force must be present in order for the offence to be made out. Both offences always and continue to attract long prison sentences, espe-cially if the offence was committed at night. Unlike burglary and robbery, which are clearly defined in a small amount of legislation, fraud offences encompass a variety of criminal acts. Fraud stretches from cheating and gaining property or goods by false pretenses or false representation, to major organised property crime involving the theft by deception of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Fraud was dealt with in both the minor and the higher courts, but could also be treated as a civil offence (tort) when it involved the breaching of a contract through deceit. In the nineteenth century fraud mainly con-sisted of coining offences, counterfeiting and joint-stock company frauds, but, in the twentieth century, the courts dealt with insurance frauds and large-scale financial irregularities. By the end of century, fraud trials took place daily in Britain’s highest courts. b) Trends in Incidence and Explanations Offered The annually published criminal statistics show that the scale of serious property offending was fairly consistent between the start of the twenti-eth century until World War Two (see Figure 3.1 below). Both the 1914 to 1918 and 1940 to 1945 series of statistics were affected by the diffi-cult circumstances caused by war. Nevertheless, if they reflect the real level of offending, the two World Wars appear to mark something of a watershed for serious crime.
eBook - ePub- Jonathan Merritt(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Learning Matters(Publisher)
10 Property OffencesRemember this symbol indicates that the material might be useful for your Student Officer Learning and Assessment Programme (SOLAP) portfolio or any attached reflective practice record you are required to make.Underpinning knowledge towards Patrol Officer NOS: 1A1, 1B9, 2A1, 2C1, 2C2, 2C3, 2C4, 2G2, 2H1, 2H2, 2J1, 2J2, 2K2, 4C1 and PCSO NOS: 1A1,1B11, 2A1, 2C1, 2C2, 2C3, 2C5, 2J1, 2J2, 4C1 For further information on these NOS, which are also Policing Level 3 and 4 NVQ unit titles, refer to Appendix 1 to this volume.This chapter covers the law on the following Property Offences:- theft;
- burglary;
- going equipped;
- robbery;
- handling;
- taking without owner’s consent (TWOC) and vehicle interference;
- making off without payment;
- criminal damage;
- deception and fraud offences.
ACTIVITY
Go to www.crimestatistics.org.uk and research the figures for dishonesty offences in your area and compare them with national figures. You can also compare police-recorded figures with those collected for the same period by questionnaire sent to members of the public as part of the British Crime Survey. You will see that apparently only half the crimes are actually reported in some years. Why do you think this is?Theft
By the end of this section you will be able to:- define theft;
- evaluate problems in the application of the definition;
- apply relevant case law and statute to a range of hypothetical situations.
Theft is probably one of the most common offences that a student officer will come across. It is also a major component of offences such as burglary and robbery, which are both theft with some other aggravating feature. In addition this chapter will enable you to use the correct terminology for each offence, you will often hear a member of the public refer to their house having been ‘robbed’ when they mean burgled, for instance. Such terms as ‘mugging’ and even ‘fraud’ or ‘arson’ are a little imprecise on their own. The specific offences are best discussed for professional purposes in terms of the statutory provision which relates to them.
eBook - ePubModern Criminal Law
Fifth Edition
- Mike Molan(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge-Cavendish(Publisher)
CHAPTER 8OFFENCES AGAINST PROPERTY: THEFT
The next two chapters are concerned with offences against property which are detailed in the Theft Act (TA) 1968, Theft Act (TA) 1978 and the Theft (Amendment) Act 1996. There will also be an examination of the offence of criminal damage contrary to the Criminal Damage Act 1971.8.1 INTRODUCTION
The TA 1968 is the result of the work of the Criminal Law Revision Committee (Eighth Report, Theft and Related Offences, Cmnd 2977, 1966). The Larceny Act 1916 had created innumerable problems of interpretation for the courts resulting in over-complexity because of the integration of many civil law concepts, particularly in respect of the crime of larceny. The TA 1968, therefore, set out to create a new order which it was hoped would be intelligible to the ordinary person. In many respects, the TA 1968 achieved this objective, but now, 35 years on, and many cases later, the ordinary person would have some real difficulty in understanding much of the law. As will be seen later, the House of Lords has hardly helped to create the certainty one expects from the criminal law.The basic definition of theft is contained in s 1 of the TA 1968 and reads:A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and ‘thief’ and ‘steal’ shall be construed accordingly.The offence carries a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment. It will be immediately apparent that the actus reus and mens rea concepts can be easily distinguished. The actus reus is described by the words ‘appropriates property belonging to another’, and the mens rea requires proof of dishonesty and an intention permanently to deprive the other of the property.Sections 2–6 of the TA 1968 give help and assistance as to how these key words are to be interpreted and therefore require careful consideration. Perhaps the starting point ought to be s 4 which deals with property because this determines what can actually be stolen.
eBook - PDF- Joel Samaha(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 432 CHAPTER 11 • CRIMES AGAINST PROPERTY T here are many specific crimes against property—too many to list here, let alone discuss. To simplify, we look at three categories of crimes against property and a few representa- tive crimes within each. The three categories are: 1. Taking other people’s property 2. Damaging or destroying other people’s property 3. Invading other people’s property First, we look at four crimes that consist of taking someone else’s property: 1. Theft. Sneaking away with an iPad left unattended in the library 2. Fraud. Abuse of trust: Bernard Madoff ’s Ponzi scheme that took billions of dollars from investors who trusted him with their fortunes; Navy Commander Charles E. Coughlin who was charged with and convicted of fraudulently trying to collect over $150,000 from the 9-11 victims’ funds 3. Robbery. Sticking a gun in someone’s side and demanding the $100 she just withdrew from an ATM machine 4. Receiving stolen property. Buying a new notebook computer for $75 that you know is stolen Second, we’ll look at two crimes involving destroying and damaging someone else’s property: 1. Arson. Setting a house on fire 2. Criminal mischief. Damaging someone else’s property (such as driving your car up on an obnoxious neighbor’s new sod and spinning the wheels) Third, we’ll look at two criminal invasions of someone else’s property: 1. Burglary. Unlawfully entering someone else’s house with the intent to steal a TV inside 2.
eBook - PDF- Michael Bohlander(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Hart Publishing(Publisher)
11 Property Offences Overview When we talk about Property Offences in the context of German criminal law, we need to make a distinction between offences against property in the meaning of ‘ Eigentum ’, ie title to chattels and land, and property in the meaning of ‘ Vermögen ’, ie the assets of a person, which includes Eigentum and non-tangible assets such as choses in action, etc. Vermögen is thus the wider concept. The category of Eigentum is based on a legal criterion, that of Vermögen on a combined legal-economic model. One also needs to understand that the offender, of course, can-not obtain title by the mere act of stealing—he may by deception—but merely gains possession or the factual opportunity to dispose of the assets, and thus the offences under this heading might be more appropriately entitled ‘offences against the right to free possession and enjoyment’, 1 but the current practice conveys the same meaning and one should not fuss about labels unnecessarily. 2 A further fundamental fact is that German law does not use a general term such as ‘appropriation’, but distinguishes between ‘taking away’ ( Wegnahme ) and get-ting the victim to ‘dispose of’ ( Verfügung ) the protected goods. Taking away means breaking the victim’s custody, which is both a narrower and wider concept than possession under civil law ( Besitz ), 3 over a chattel against or without her con-sent, whilst getting her to dispose of the chattel can be done either by tricking her into parting with it, or by making her do so by threats, as in blackmail. Only the first version can be applied in theft, so that under German law results such as in Hinks 4 are excluded. Theft, then, means something different in English and German law, if Hinks is to stand. That conclusion must, however, be kept apart from the question of when we can talk about Wegnahme and when about Verfügung , which is not always easy to tell in each individual case.
eBook - PDFLacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law
Text and Materials
- Celia Wells, Oliver Quick(Authors)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Cambridge University Press(Publisher)
This debate raises an issue which is never far below the surface of the debate about property crime: the question of the appropriate line between civil and criminal enforcement and the coexistence of the two. The enforcement of criminal law relating to property raises criminological issues about how far it is accurate to envisage property offenders as rational calculators who may regard moderate criminal penalties 462 Lacey, Wells and Quick Reconstructing Criminal Law Text and Materials as modest price tags or taxes attaching to their activities (a recurring spectre in accounts of property crime). It also raises moral issues about how far offenders should effectively be able to buy the right to offend by paying fines, which are the predominant mode of sanction in this area. The latter concern has emerged clearly in debate about compensation for victims of crime, the recovery of the profits of crime, and the relationship between these practices and pecuniary criminal penalties in the form of fines. The Hodgson Committee recommended the extended recognition within the criminal justice system of victims’ interests and the greater accommodation of compensation and profit-stripping (1994). The report met with a positive institutional response in the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which provided for forfeiture and the confiscation of proceeds of offences (ss. 69–89), and made changes in the provision for compensation of victims by offenders (ss. 104– 107), notably in extending the range of compensable injuries to include death and imposing a duty on courts to give reasons why they have not made an order in any case in which they have power to do so. (Confiscation in relation to offences committed after March 2003 is covered by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 which we discuss in further detail in 13.a.iii below).
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