Theft

11 Key excerpts on "Theft"

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  Optimize Criminal Law

  • John Hendy, Odette Hutchinson(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  It is important to remember to stay focused on the subject you are being examined on (Theft and criminal law), try not to stray into other areas of law, as these can distract from the central issues. That is not to say that you should not note the overlap – and this will demonstrate a rounded understanding of all the issues for the examiner – but do ensure that the vast majority of your answer is in relation to the criminal law! If you wander too far off on a tangent you will limit the award of marks that the examiner can make.

  This chapter will focus on defining a number of key terms such as ‘property’, ‘dishonesty’ and ‘belonging to another’. These terms are vital to fully understanding and applying the law in this area and you need to have a solid understanding of these terms in order to apply them accurately in a problem question. As you work through the chapter, keep focused on these terms, and then test your understanding in the activities at the end.

  In this chapter we will focus on the

  Theft Act 1968

  , and the subsequent

  Theft Act 1978

  , which refined the 1968 Theft Act.

  The

  Theft Act 1968

  brought together the main Theft offences for the first time, clarifying the actus reus and mens rea for each.

  The offences in the

  Theft Act 1968

  that we will consider in this chapter are:

  Theft

  robbery

  burglary – including aggravated burglary

  trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence – an overview.

  Theft

  The definition of Theft is set out in s 1 of the

  Theft Act 1968

  :

  (1) A person is guilty of Theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it . . .

  (2) It is immaterial whether the appropriation is made with a view to gain, or for the thief’s own benefit.

  The actus reus and mens rea for Theft are:

  We will now consider each of these five elements in detail.

  Appropriation

  It is this element of Theft that causes the most difficulty for students. At first glance, it might be assumed that the term means the physical removal of property, such as physically removing a purse from a handbag. However, appropriation actually has a much broader meaning.

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  Criminal Financial Investigations

  The Use of Forensic Accounting Techniques and Indirect Methods of Proof, Second Edition

  • Gregory A. Pasco, Dale L. June(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In many states, if the value of the property taken is low (for example, less than $500.00), the crime is “petty Theft,” but it is “grand Theft” for larger amounts, designated misdemeanor or felony, respectively. Theft is synony-mous with “larceny.” Although robbery (taking by force), burglary (taken by entering unlawfully), and embezzlement (stealing from an employer) are all commonly thought of as Theft, they are distinguished by the means and methods used, and are separately designated as those types of crimes in criminal charges and statutory punishments. Burglary Burglary is the crime of breaking and entering into a structure for the pur-pose of committing a crime. No great force is needed (pushing open a door or slipping through an open window is sufficient) if the entry is unauthor-ized. Contrary to common belief, a burglary is not necessarily for Theft. It can apply to any crime, such as assault or sexual harassment, whether the intended criminal act is committed or not. Originally under English common law, burglary was limited to entry in residences at night, but it has been expanded to all criminal entries into any building or even into a vehicle. 31 Categories of Theft Larceny Larceny is the crime of taking the goods of another person without permis-sion (usually secretly) with the intent of keeping them. It is one form of Theft. Some states differentiate between grand larceny and petty larceny based on the value of the stolen goods. Grand larceny is a felony with a state prison sen-tence as a punishment, and petty larceny is usually limited to county jail time. Robbery Robbery is the direct taking of property (including money) from a person (victim) through force, threat, or intimidation. Robbery is a felony (crime punishable by a term in state or federal prison).

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  Criminal Law and Procedure

  • Daniel E. Hall(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 128 Part 1 Criminal Law notes are examples. It was not larceny to steal intangible personal property. Under modern statutes, all forms of personal property are protected by Theft laws. The fourth element is that the personal property must be owned by another. A person can’t steal from themself. However, the rule was extended to prohibit prosecution of a partner for taking partnership assets and joint tenants from taking each other’s things; also, because husband and wife were one person under the Common Law, it was not possible for spouses to steal from one another. Finally, the mens rea element: It is required that the defendant intend to permanently deprive the owner of possession of the property. In short, to be a thief one must have an intent to steal. If Jamar takes Eddie’s lawn mower, intending to return the mower when he has completed his mowing, he has not committed larceny because didn’t possess an intent to permanently deprive Eddie of the mower. Also, if an accused has a good faith belief that he had lawful right to the property, the requisite mens rea is absent. Courts have held that if the property is held for such a long period, or it is used or damaged in some manner, that it loses a significant amount of its value, a larceny has occurred. Further, if an actor takes property intending to use it in a manner that threatens to devalue it, even if the actor intends to return it, larceny has occurred. To illustrate, imagine a pilot, Sully, who takes a plane owned by another person, intending to return it after using it in a daredevil show. In such a case, Sully is subjecting the property to substantial risk. Therefore he has commit- ted larceny, even though he intends to return the plane. Embezzlement Learning Objective: Define, describe, and apply the elements of embezzlement.

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  Law Relating To Theft

  • C. Walsh, Edward Phillips, P. Dobson, Edward Phillips, P. Dobson(Authors)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Routledge-Cavendish

    (Publisher)

  actus reus is contained in s 3 which deals with the meaning of ‘appropriation’, and in ss 4 and 5, which elaborate on the meaning of ‘property’ and ‘belonging to another’ respectively. Note that ss 2-6 are purely explanatory and have no other function but to interpret the content of the basic definition.

  Each element of Theft will be examined in the order in which it appears in the basic definition. However, it may be helpful to note throughout that Theft is essentially a crime against rights of ownership in property and need not necessarily involve a taking into possession. Note, too, that the wording of s 1(2) of the Act means that it is not necessary to show that the thief has appropriated property for his own benefit - throwing a person's handbag down a deep well is as much Theft of the handbag as if the thief had taken the handbag home and used it as a replacement for an old one of his own. Furthermore, due to the wide definition of property in s 4, almost anything can, in principle, be the subject of Theft. In addition, the House of Lords has given an extraordinarily wide meaning to the concept of ‘appropriation’, which means that the offence of Theft is drawn very broadly. However, no act which is done in relation to property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving another's rights in that property will amount to Theft, unless it is done dishonestly.

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  Thirteen Ways to Steal a Bicycle

  Theft Law in the Information Age

  • Stuart P. Green(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Harvard University Press

    (Publisher)

  11 As discussed in Chapter 4, to say that a thing constitutes property means different things in dif-ferent legal contexts. I shall argue that the particular kind of property that can be subject to Theft reflects two basic requirements: first, it must be commodifiable, meaning that it is capable of being bought and sold; and, second, it must be rivalrous, meaning that consumption of it by one user will prevent simultaneous consumption by others. Different property crimes affect different sticks in the bundle in dif-ferent ways. Trespass, joyriding, and unauthorized use of a movable consist of temporarily using another’s property without permission—a kind of temporary dispossession, but without any requirement of damage to property. Infringement of intangible and intellectual prop-erty can also be conceptualized as a kind of temporary dispossession. Vandalism and criminal damage, on the other hand, typically involve damage to the owner’s property, but no dispossession. The most venerable property crime—Theft—has traditionally required a particularly substantial interference with an owner’s property rights, including, often, though not always, the right of possession. Theft involves not just a temporary violation of the owner’s right to exclude others from using the property, but also a more permanent violation of the owner’s right to use it himself. But the line between Theft and trespass or unauthorized use is not a bright one: the concepts form a continuum. There is a threshold point at which a trespass becomes so significant that we can say that a stealing has occurred. Theft is harmful in the narrow sense that it deprives the property owner of a thing that saves him labor, or from which he derives plea-sure, or which generates income for him.

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  Unlocking Criminal Law

  • Tony Storey, Natalie Wortley, Jacqueline Martin(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Until 2014 all offences of Theft were triable either way, and thus defendants could opt for trial at the Crown Court. However, under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, low-value shoplifting cases under £200 are triable only summarily (i.e. in a magistrates’ court) unless the defendant specifically elects Crown Court trial.

  9.1.1 Theft

  Theft is defined in s 1 of the Theft Act 1968, which states that:

  SECTION ‘1 A person is guilty of Theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.’

  The Act then goes on in the next five sections to give some help with the meaning of the words or phrases in the definition. Sections 2–6 relate to the following elements:

  • s 2 – ‘dishonestly’;
  • s 3 – ‘appropriates’;
  • s 4 – ‘property’;
  • s 5 – ‘belonging to another’; and
  • s 6 – ‘with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it’.

  Remember that the offence is in s 1. A person charged with Theft is always charged with stealing ‘contrary to section 1 of the Theft Act 1968’. Sections 2 to 6 are definition sections, explaining s 1. They do not themselves create any offences.

  9.1.2 The elements of Theft

  The actus reus of Theft is made up of the three elements, which are all contained in the phrase ‘appropriates property belonging to another’. To prove the actus reus it has to be shown first that there was appropriation by the defendant. Secondly, the thing that was appropriated must constitute property under the Act. And thirdly, at the time of the appropriation, the property must have belonged to another. These elements may look like straightforward words, but the definitions in the Act, together with case law interpreting these definitions, has resulted in some decisions that you may find surprising. For example, although the wording ‘belonging to another’ seems very clear, it is possible for a defendant to be found guilty of stealing their own property. (See section 9.4.1 .)

  There are two elements which must be proved for the mens rea

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  Shopping and Crime

  • J. Bamfield(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Property rights were necessities for the continuity of businesses, households, individuals and the work of government (Hayek, 1979; Wennerlind and Schabas, 2007; Copp, 2009). To these writers Theft was an attack upon the community. In contrast the anarchist philosopher Proudhon is best known for arguing in 1840 that property itself is Theft (because it is stolen from other members of 90 The Crime of Theft: How Much Is Stolen? 91 the community). But by 1866 Proudhon’s Theory of Property advocated pri- vate property as being the only source of power independent of the state (Proudhon, 2011). Theft Acts, 1968 and 1978 All countries have laws to protect property against unlawful acquisition by another. In England and Wales, the relevant legislation is the Theft Acts 1968 and 1978, a codification of previous laws covering larceny, Theft, deception, blackmail, Theft of vehicles and handling stolen goods. Prior to these most retail case cases were charged as ‘larceny’ (Griew, 1995). Theft is defined in the Theft Act, 1966, Section 1(1) simply as follows: A person is guilty of Theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belong- ing to another with the intent of permanently depriving the other of it. The Theft Acts are wide-ranging in their scope. Theft is defined broadly to include any form of property, both assets and money and every method of Theft (Griew, 1995). The key test of Theft in the Theft Act, 1968, is ‘appropri- ation’. Appropriation is not dependent on property being physically ‘taken away’ (or leaving the store): it means broadly assuming any of the rights as if one were the owner (Herring, 2010). In the Morris case (1984), where mer- chandise price labels had been switched by a consumer to obtain expensive goods at a lower price, the appropriation (or Theft) was held to have occurred at the moment when Morris changed the labels, so acting as if he were the owner (Griew, 1995).

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  Crimes of the Art World

  • Thomas D. Bazley Ph.D.(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  Theft OFFENSES GENERALLY: LARCENY, BURGLARY, AND ROBBERY Chapter 1 introduced two recurring themes that are inherent in the study of art crime: (1) it is worldwide in scope, (2) which results in dealing 22 Crimes of the Art World with variations in how crimes are defined from one nation to another. We have chosen to examine art Theft in terms of larceny, burglary, and robbery, crimes that are defined and tracked by the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) that is compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Again, recall from chapter 1 that the UCR is one of the major crime-monitoring programs in the United States (the other being the National Crime Victimization Survey). The UCR reflects crimes reported to the police, and larceny, burglary, and robbery are considered major or Part I crimes within this data-collection program. Specific definitions for the monitored crimes are provided to contributing police agencies to enhance reporting consistency and stan- dardization. The UCR definitions for larceny, burglary, and robbery are as follows: Larceny—larceny-Theft is the unlawful taking, carrying, leading, or riding away • of property from the possession or constructive possession of another. Examples are Thefts of bicycles, motor vehicle parts and accessories, shoplifting, pocket- picking, or the stealing of any property or article that is not taken by force and violence or by fraud. Attempted larcenies are included. (Note that under this defi- nition larceny and Theft are treated synonymously as long as no force, violence, or fraud was involved.) Burglary—the unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or Theft. To clas- • sify an offense as a burglary, the use of force to gain entry need not have oc- curred. There are three sub-classifications for burglary: forcible entry, unlawful entry where no force is used, and attempted forcible entry.

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  Thieves in Court

  The Making of the German Legal System in the Nineteenth Century

  • Rebekka Habermas, Kathleen Mitchell Dell'Orto(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  The second important change was the slow, imperceptible shift in the legal definition of Theft, which is admittedly not easy to trace because of its numerous ramifications. In particular, the legal definition of Theft changed such that here, too, all relationship aspects gradually disap- peared and the monetary value of the article was given priority. An offense in which many circumstances, and relationship components as well, had played a role ultimately became a crime devoid of any interper- sonal dimensions. In the same manner as has already been seen in the case of the property concept, the shift in meaning within the legal discourse forced a complex social event – the encounter of Anton Zimmermann and the beggar boys is undoubtedly representative – to be reduced to a property issue. Thus, not only the debates about property and middle- class society but also the legal discussions about Theft contributed to the lasting change in the treatment of robbery complaints in rural areas during the nineteenth century. What did the changes in the legal definition of Theft look like? 34 In the first half of the nineteenth century there were two main categories of Theft: so-called simple Theft and qualified Theft. “Simple Theft,” that is, stealing 84 What Is Theft an article without violence and other aggravating associated actions or circumstances, was in turn subcategorized first, as “small”(petty) Theft, 35 second, as “large” (grand) Theft, or third as “repeated” Theft. 36 Important for adjudicating the “simple Thefts” was the value of the article stolen and the frequency of Theft, that is, the extent of repetition. 37 Added to these as a further criterion was the “malice displayed and the extent of criminal intent.” 38 The length and form of the penalty were supposed to be determined on that basis.

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  A Layperson's Guide to Criminal Law

  • Raneta Mack(Author)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Greenwood

    (Publisher)

  Such circumstances might include, for example, taking property without the owner’s consent and intentionally exposing it to dangerous or destructive circumstances. Finally, a person may take property from another under the mistaken belief that he or she is entitled to take the property. For example, a person may take property with the mistaken belief that the owner has consented to the taking. In these situations, if the mistake by the taker is reasonable, it will negate any criminal intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property. The taking is simply an honest mistake. All of the surrounding circumstances must be evaluated, however, to determine if it was reasonable for the taker to have such beliefs with respect to the treatment of the property. If the beliefs are unreasonable, then the intent to steal may be established based upon the taker’s treatment of the property. EMBEZZLEMENT The crime of embezzlement is similar to larceny in the sense that property must be taken without the owner’s consent and with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property. The main difference between the crimes of larceny and embezzlement is that the embezzler usually has lawful possession of the property at the time of the taking. (Note that lawful possession does not mean ownership of the property.) In most cases of embezzlement, the owner of the property has entrusted the embezzler with care, custody or control of the property for a limited purpose or period of time. Embezzlement often arises in the employment context, when an employer gives an employee limited possession or control of certain property Page 116 and the employee begins to treat that property in a manner that is inconsistent with the employer’s limited grant of possession or control. To illustrate: Ike Invoice is employed by the ABC Company as a purchaser.

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  Cases & Materials on Criminal Law

  Fourth Edition

  • Mike Molan(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Routledge-Cavendish

    (Publisher)

  The definition of Theft therefore embraces cases where the property has come to the defendant by the mistake of the person to whom it belongs and there would be an obligation to restore it – s 5(4) – or property in which the other still has an equitable proprietary interest –s 5(1). This would also embrace property obtained by undue influence or other cases coming within the classes of invalid transfer recognised in Re Beaney. In cases of alleged gift, the criteria to be applied are the same. But additional care may need to be taken to see that the transaction is properly explained to the jury. It is unlikely that a charge of Theft will be brought where there is not clear evidence of at least some conduct of the defendant which includes an element of fraud or overt dishonesty or some undue influence or knowledge of the deficient capacity of the alleged donor. This was the basis upon which the prosecution of the appellant was originally brought in the present case. On this basis there is no difficulty in explaining to the jury the relevant parts of s 5 and s 2(1) and the effect of the phrase ‘assumption of the rights of an owner’. Where the basis is less specific and the possibility is that there may have been a valid gift of the relevant article or money to the defendant, the analysis of the prosecution case will break down under sections 2 and 5 as well as s 3 and it will not suffice simply to invite the jury to convict on the basis of their disapprobation of the defendant’s conduct and their attribution to him of the knowledge that he must have known that they and other ordinary and decent persons would think it dishonest. Theft is a crime of dishonesty but dishonesty is not the only element in the commission of the crime. I would answer the certified question in the negative

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