Larceny
Compare and contrast the crimes of burglary, breaking and entering, and home invasion.
Research state laws to provide definitions for each.
How are they similar? Explain.
What sets them apart? Explain.
Burglary is entering a place, car, house, business or building without permission or staying in the place without permission, with the intent to commit a crime. It could be someone hiding in a store till after it closes, or sneaking in an unopened window or breaking the lock on a door. Breaking and entering is
entering a residence or other enclosed property through force (even pushing open a door), without permission. There does not have to be an intent to commit a crime, but there has to be force. It is not “hiding” in someone’s garage when a person come in through an unlocked door.
Home invasion illegally entering a private and occupied residence with violent intent for the purpose of committing a crime against the people in the house such as robbery, assault, rape, murder, or kidnapping. It is not sneaking in after the people leave, or something like that.
In common law, larceny was defined as the taking of another person’s property or the interest in another’s property. Although larceny is still used in many states today, it has been greatly expanded to include other theft expenses.
Identify at least 3 related theft offenses that developed from the offense of larceny. Discuss your identified offenses, and provide examples to support your arguments.
Larceny is an older word which was strictly the taking by carrying off, of another’s personal property. It has been expended in some states to me generally the theft of personal property and sometimes the state will divide it into Petty larceny, grand larceny, petit larceny to indicate how much the value of the property was. There is also a few states which have ‘larceny of a motor vehicle.”
Where states use the word “larceny” it is often interchangeable with the word theft. Other terms for types of theft are: First degree theft, second degree theft, and so on, depending on the value of the items stolen which is usually a personal property. But it can also mean damaging something of value, or theft by using a stolen credit card—even if it is just writing down the number and using it. The degree of theft would probably be considered by the amount of the property purchased by the stolen card, or stolen card numbers. Theft could mean running up a phone bill on someone else’s account without permission. There is a myriad of ways a theft charged could be considered.
Another “theft” term is robbery. It usually involves stealing right from, or in the presence of a person, such as the robbery of a bank or a store. If it involves a weapon it is called armed robbery, but it always involves a “taking” of money or property of some kind.
There are other charges similar to larceny, but do not involve the actually “carrying off” of an item. That could be embezzlement, which is taking of money from a business by someone changing the books, writing checks to himself, taking in payments and keeping them, or other ways.
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