Burglary - United States

United States

Burglary is prosecuted as a felony or misdemeanor and involves trespassing and theft, entering a building or automobile, or remaining unlawfully with intent to commit any crime, not necessarily a theft – for example, vandalism. Even if nothing is stolen in a burglary, the act is a statutory offense. Buildings can include sheds, barns, and coops; burglary of boats, aircraft, and railway cars is possible. Burglary may be an element in crimes involving rape, arson, kidnapping, identity theft, or violation of civil rights; indeed the "plumbers" of the Watergate scandal were technically burglars. As with all legal definitions in the U.S., the foregoing description may not be applicable in every jurisdiction, since there are 50 separate state criminal codes, plus Federal and territorial codes in force.

Read more about this topic:  Burglary

Famous quotes related to united states:

    “Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.”
    —Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)

    “Of all the nations in the world, the United States was built in nobody’s image. It was the land of the unexpected, of unbounded hope, of ideals, of quest for an unknown perfection. It is all the more unfitting that we should offer ourselves in images. And all the more fitting that the images which we make wittingly or unwittingly to sell America to the world should come back to haunt and curse us.”
    —Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)

    “The recognition of Russia on November 16, 1933, started forces which were to have considerable influence in the attempt to collectivize the United States.”
    —Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)

    “A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.”
    —James Madison (1751–1836)

    “I hate to do what everybody else is doing. Why, only last week, on Fifth Avenue and some cross streets, I noticed that every feminine citizen of these United States wore an artificial posy on her coat or gown. I came home and ripped off every one of the really lovely refrigerator blossoms that were sewn on my own bodices.”
    —Carolyn Wells (1862–1942)