This article highlights a number of violent, economic crimes and crimes of intimidation. Robbery refers to the act of taking something of value that belongs to somebody else through the use of physical force or violence or threats thereof. Where a person attempts to take somebody else’ property through the use of force but does not succeed, this is referred to as attempted robbery. The distinguishing factor between robbery and common theft is that for an offence to qualify as robbery, then it must involve the use of physical force or violence. There are various types of robberies depending on the nature of the robbery. These include armed robbery where the robbery involves the use of a weapon, aggravated robbery on the other hand involves the use of a serious or deadly weapon which may likely cause fatalities while highway robbery variously referred to as mugging refers to robbery which takes place in public place.
Computer or cyber-crimes may be defined as acts that are committed against individuals or entities with a malicious motive to willfully injure the reputation of the victims cause other types of damage to the victim either directly or indirectly through the use of telecommunication networks such as cellular phones and the internet. Various manifestations of cyber crime include espionage, child pornography, cracking, and financial theft among many others.
Stalking may be categorized among the crimes of intimidation as it involves obsessive attention by an individual towards another person to such extent that the victim is uncomfortable with such undue and excessive attention. While stalking is illegal in many countries in the world, a number of actions that contribute to stalking are well within the law. Such activities as gathering information are legal but only become illegal and tantamount to stalking when they amount to what is legally defined as harassment.
The offense of hostage taking involves the illegal capture of a person or persons by other persons and in most cases using such persons as bargaining chips for what the hostage takers want. The person who is held in such capture is referred to as a hostage. Hostage taking involves seizure of someone by persons with criminal intent so as to compel another party, usually related in one way or the other with the hostage to do or refrain from doing a particular thing. The hostage takers seek to achieve this through issuing threats of harming the captive or even killing him/her to the persons who are subject of their demands.
Arson can be defined as the offense of willfully and maliciously setting ablaze buildings or other property with the intention of damaging them. The offense of arson can be distinguished from other fire incidences such as spontaneous fires and natural forest fires in that for arson, the perpetrator usually deliberately sets fire upon the property of another person with ill motives of causing damage to such property. The person who commits the offense of arson is called an arsonist while the crime itself has four major elements which must be present for an act to qualify as arson. These include the malicious intention, burning, the burning has to be of a dwelling and lastly, this dwelling should belong to somebody who is not the owner of the dwelling.
The crime of bombing is one of the most violent crimes and has the ability to affect a wide area as well as a large number of people. Bombing involves the dropping or triggering of a bomb to explode and the sudden and violent release of energy by the bomb causes widespread destruction and death. Bombing is a crime usually perpetrated by those who target to kill very many people or destroy property on a large scale or a combination of the two. It is crime which is mainly perpetrated by terrorists who due to heightened surveillance against terrorist activities, usually seek to cause as much damage as possible when they get the opportunity to strike. An illustration would be the 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya and in Dar-es-Salaam Tanzania.
Closely related to bombing are crimes related to explosive incidents. While bombing entails the use of a bomb, explosive incidents do not necessarily involve a bomb but rather involve explosive devices or materials. An explosive material can simply be defined as a reactive substance which contains energy within itself which when released suddenly, it produces an explosion which is usually accompanied by the production of pressure, sound, heat and light. It is this pressure and heat that largely cause the damage and destruction that is associated with explosives. There are various explosives most of which are factory made but there equally exists home-made explosives commonly known as improvised explosive devices or IEDs. Most explosive incidents in the developed countries comprise of manufactured explosives such as grenades while in the developing countries, the kind of explosives mostly used in explosive incidents are home-made or improvised explosive devices.
References
Cole, G. F., & Smith, C. E. (2007). Criminal Justice in America. Connecticut: Cengage Learing.
Neubauer, D. W., & Fradella, H. F. (2010). American Courts and the Criminal Justice System. Connecticut: Cengage Learning.
Schmalleger, F. (2009). Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction. Pennyslvania: Prentice Hall.
