vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The t ...

etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th

Canada

The country's

Criminal Code A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...

makes :wikibooks:Canadian Criminal Law/Offences/Mischief">mischief Mischief (or malicious mischief) is the name for a class of criminal offenses that are defined differently in different legal jurisdictions. While the wrongful acts will often involve what is popularly described as vandalism, there can be a lega ...

a hybrid offence, punishable by up to and including life imprisonment in Canada, life imprisonment if the mischief causes actual danger to human life. Public mischief is the term for the crime of wasting police time.

Scotland

Malicious mischief is an offence against the

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

of

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. It does not require actual damage to property for the offence to be committed; financial damage consequential to the act is sufficient. It has now largely been replaced by vandalism, a statutory offense with the same definition. Vandalism is defined by section 52 of the

Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 The Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 (c. 39) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed to consolidate certain enactments creating offences and relating to the criminal law of Scotland. Part I - Sexual Offences ...

.

United States

In

United States criminal law The criminal law of the United States is a manifold system of laws and practices that connects crimes and consequences. In comparison, civil law addresses non-criminal disputes. The system varies considerably by jurisdiction, but conforms to the ...

, mischief is an offense against

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...

that typically involves the intentional or reckless infliction of

damage Damage is any change in a thing, often a physical object, that degrades it away from its initial state. It can broadly be defined as "changes introduced into a system that adversely affect its current or future performance".Farrar, C.R., Sohn, H., ...

, defacement,

alteration Alteration(s) may refer to: * Alteration (music), the use of a neighboring pitch in the chromatic scale in place of its diatonic neighbor. ** Alteration, in the mensural notation used by renaissance music, the lengthening of a breve, semibreve or ...

, or

destruction Destruction may refer to: Concepts * Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger * Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism * Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain kin ...

of

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...

. Common forms include

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The t ...

and

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

. Governed by

state law State law refers to the law of a federated state, as distinguished from the law of the federation of which it is a part. It is used when the constituent components of a federation are themselves called states. Federations made up of provinces, cant ...

, criminal mischief is committed when a perpetrator, having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he/she has such a right, intentionally or recklessly

damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognized at ...

property of another person, intentionally participates in the

destruction Destruction may refer to: Concepts * Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger * Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism * Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain kin ...

of property of another person, or participates in the reckless damage or destruction of property of another person.

References

External links

* Legal terminology Vandalism {{Crime-stub

Scotland

United States

See also

References

External links