Currently, the number of thefts committed by citizens has increased significantly, both on a small scale and on a large scale. Most often, thefts are of a group nature. This is due to the fact that it is much easier to pick up property belonging to another person when several people are involved in the case. At the same time, responsibility for a group crime is much more serious than for a sole crime. Therefore, it is important for criminals and victims to know what criminal liability awaits offenders for attempting to steal someone else's property.
Article 158 of the Criminal Code
One hundred and fifty-eighth article of the Criminal Code defines the concept of theft as a form of theft. The Code defines theft as perfect for the purpose of gaining gratuitous unlawful seizure of property belonging to another person, or circulation of property of another person for its own benefit or the benefit of other persons, as a result of which the owner or other person entrusted with the property was harmed.
Art. 158 of the Criminal Code also discloses categories of damage that allow determining the degree of guilt of the offender and imposing on him the appropriate type of sanctions. The note to this article determines the significance of the amount of damage that was caused to the citizen, as the ratio of the harm caused to the victim in monetary terms and his property status. Moreover, the amount of damage cannot be lower than five thousand rubles.
Also, article 158 of the Code defines the types of liability for theft, depending on the purpose of the act, the number of participants and the amount of damage caused to the victim. The article is divided into four parts for the indicated reasons.
The general concept of theft as a type of crime
Theft as a criminal offense is the unlawful seizure of any type of property that does not belong to the thief. The key sign of theft committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy or by one person is the secrecy of this crime, that is, no person knows about it, except for the criminals and the owner of the property.
Also, theft includes property of the owner, about which he is not aware. This may be unaccounted for goods, surpluses unknown to the owner, theft of things handed over to the owner, but not yet received by him (for example, postal parcels, letters with cash, etc.).
Small theft distinguishes from theft. The difference lies in the material value of the stolen property. If the amount of the stolen is from five thousand in rubles and above, this act is a theft (except when the law enforcement authorities have established that for the owner this amount is insignificant). If the amount is less, then in any case this offense will be recorded as petty hooliganism.
A sign of theft is the ultimate goal - to obtain personal gain (profit) for yourself (and accomplices, if we are talking about theft by a group of persons by prior agreement).
The subject of theft may be one of the types of property specified in the hundred and twenty-eighth article of the Civil Code, which has a property attribute. The subject of theft must have a physical expression (that is, be perceived in objective reality by all senses). In connection with this, the results of intellectual property and the rights arising from them are not theft. For example, the theft of a manuscript for attribution of authorship to its contents is a crime under Article 138 of the Civil Code. And the theft of the same item for the sake of its sale and revenue (for example, selling the first edition at an overpriced price) is a theft. Also, theft does not include services that the relevant services provide to all users and consumers (electricity, gas, electricity, water, etc.). Such acts are qualified under Article 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Items of theft include movable items, as well as some immovable items (for example, ships of sea or air traffic, etc.). If a wooden or brick house as an object of real estate can be disassembled by logs or bricks, this can also be qualified as theft. Unconditional theft items include cash. The theft of bank cards, certificates and other non-cash funds will qualify under Article 159 of the Code (as fraud).
A mandatory legal feature that allows qualifying an act as theft is the finding of property in free civil circulation and not belonging to its criminal in the legal sense.
Subject of theft
The subjects of theft are sane individuals who have reached the legal age of criminal prosecution. According to the norms of criminal law, the responsibility for the theft comes from the age of fourteen.
For example, to hold accountable (theft committed by a group of persons by prior agreement), it is important that all participants are the proper entities. If one of the two members of the group is insane or has not reached the age of fourteen, the crime is not a group crime.
Another important feature of the subjects of theft is the equal participation of all criminals in the act. If, for example, one person committed theft, while others incited him to this or performed aiding functions, this act would not qualify as theft by a group of persons by prior agreement. That is, in addition to the mandatory features, the subject of the crime must be a direct participant in the illegal action (with the exception of theft committed by a criminal organized group with an unchanged number of performers and a clear distribution of roles in the group).
Group theft of previously conspired persons
Theft committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy, according to Article 158 of the Code, requires special consideration as the most common type of theft. The essence of group thefts is revealed in the second part of the thirty-fifth article of the Code.
According to criminal law, a preliminary conspiracy is an agreement that is concluded by two or more persons at a certain time before the commission of the crime.
Confirmation of the fact of the agreement are the testimonies of the defendants themselves or witnesses, as well as documents recording the fact of the conspiracy. Also confirming data is the joint commission of actions aimed at embezzlement (the study of theft, the collection of weapons, the choice of retreat routes, etc.).
The theft committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy, up to 1000 rubles, is not qualified as theft, but as petty hooliganism under the administrative code.
Group theft of previously not conspired persons
The theft committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy, as part of a crime, has practically all the same symptoms as in a group unplanned crime. The difference in composition consists only in the fact of concluding an agreement on the commission of one or more illegal acts by several persons.
An example is the situation when two friends of people are traveling in public transport and, seeing the open bag of another passenger, without saying a word, pull out a wallet from there.
The theft is obvious in this case, but there is no talk of a preliminary agreement to commit a criminal offense. In this case, the rule of the first part of the thirty-fifth article of the Code is applied, and this crime is considered a group offense.
Types of Responsibility
Article 158 of the Criminal Code defines various types of liability for the commission of “simple” theft, theft by a group of persons by prior conspiracy and other types of theft of another's property. These include:
- payment of a fine, calculated in a fixed amount, or the salary of the convicted person, or other income of the convicted person;
- compulsory labor activity, calculated in hours;
- restriction of freedom calculated in months or years;
- corrective labor activity, calculated in months or years;
- arrest with placement in a house of arrest, the term of which is calculated in months or years;
- forced labor calculated in months or years;
- deprivation of liberty of a convict, the term of which shall be calculated in months or years.
The following types of sanctions may be imposed for unskilled theft:
- The payment of a fine, the maximum amount of which is eighty thousand in rubles, or is calculated in the amount of the convict's salary or his other income for the six-month period.
- Compulsory labor activity, the maximum duration of which is three hundred sixty hours.
- Corrective labor up to twelve months.
- Restriction of freedom of a convict for a maximum of twenty-four months.
- Forced labor for a maximum of twenty-four months.
- Arrest with a maximum term of four months.
- Imprisonment for a maximum of twenty-four months.
Thus, the maximum term (theft committed by a group of persons by prior agreement or non-group theft) is two years and eighty thousand in rubles. The specific type of sanctions is left to the court.
Responsibility for Part 2 of Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation
The comments of lawyers on the criminal law indicate that in the second and subsequent parts of this article the criminal offenses are qualified, therefore the responsibility for them is slightly higher than for unqualified theft.
The second part includes liability for the theft of a group of persons by prior conspiracy; theft, as a result of which the victim suffered serious damage; theft with the penetration of force into the premises or storage and theft of property located in personal belongings (hand luggage) of the victim.
Notes to the second part of the article reveal the concepts of premises and storage, which allows you to correctly qualify the acts committed by criminals.
Premises are constructions and structures of any form of ownership, which are designed to locate people for a certain period of time, as well as to place valuables of a material nature for official, industrial or other similar purposes.
Storage facilities are premises for economic purposes, which are isolated from residential premises. This list also includes pipelines, territorial land plots and other structures of any form of ownership, intended exclusively for the temporary or permanent storage of valuables of a material nature.
Shtraf (theft committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy, and other types of theft) for the second part of the article in question is a maximum of two hundred thousand. More stringent types of liability for this part are restriction of liberty for up to twelve months or imprisonment in a prison or colony, the maximum term of which is five years.
Responsibility for the third part of article 158
In the third part, the following types of theft are considered:
- Theft committed not by a group of persons by prior conspiracy, in the amount attributable to large legislation.
- Theft committed with unlawful entry into the premises of the victim.
- Theft from industrial pipelines (gas and oil pipelines).
The penalty for committed acts varies from the amount of eighty thousand together with imprisonment to the amount of six hundred thousand (as a sole punishment). In addition to the fine, the type of punishment in the form of imprisonment for a maximum of six years is established for such acts.
According to comments on legislation and judicial practice, theft committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy in large amounts is considered theft of property worth more than two hundred and fifty thousand in rubles. The special amount of theft in this article is one million rubles.
Responsibility for the fourth part of the article
The theft committed by a criminal organized group, or committed in a special amount of at least one million rubles, is a specially qualified composition.
Penalties for the fourth part are set within the minimum amount of stolen - up to a million in rubles. In addition, the article provides for a restriction of freedom for twenty-four months or indefinitely.
The most serious punishment is imprisonment, the maximum duration of which is ten years.
Victim action
If a person is in the role of an injured person, he must immediately perform the following actions:
- remember the signs of a thief (if possible);
- save items with traces of a robber;
- contact the police and write a statement bringing the perpetrator to justice of a criminal nature.
Moreover, one should not expect that the guilty person will be found and punished immediately, and the stolen property will be returned to the victim.
When submitting the application, it is necessary to indicate the recipient of the application to the head of the department in law enforcement agencies. In the submitted application, it is necessary to accurately indicate the list of stolen property, the real or market value of the stolen property, all circumstances of the crime committed, the exact time and date.
In relation to the property indicated in the list, it is necessary to provide documents that confirm the victim's right of ownership in relation to the stolen things.
If the crime was noticed by witnesses, a list of these persons with their contact details must also be indicated. Most often, it is the testimony that allows you to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The theft of property that was committed by a previously conspiring group is a qualified corpus delicti, the punishment for which is quite strict. In this case, police investigators will need to prove the fact of preliminary agreement between the criminals about the commission of one crime or a series of criminal acts and determine that this conspiracy is not consent to the creation of an organized group.