Crimes often occur in everyday life, this could be theft, as well as other types of theft. In order to prove theft, the investigator needs to collect a number of irrefutable evidence. In the event that, when a criminal is discovered, the stolen property is preserved in kind, it will serve as material evidence in the case, and after the trial it will be transferred to the victim.
What is considered theft
By theft, the legislator understands a situation where a person commits unlawful, illegal theft of valuables that belong to another person. The subject may also be money. The evidence base must be constructed in such a way as to confirm the presence of two mandatory signs in the crime:
- a goal that has a selfish orientation;
- intent to commit an unlawful act.
Theft without evidence cannot be considered by the court. This is due to the fact that in our country there is a presumption of innocence, that is, a person is considered innocent until proven otherwise. A criminal case is initiated after an inspection has been carried out, during which it was possible to confirm the commission of a crime.
Punishment under the article
Petty theft (up to 1000 rubles) is punishable according to Art. 7.27 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation:
- a fine, which is five times the price of the stolen property, but cannot be less than 1 thousand rubles;
- administrative arrest (15 days);
- community service up to 50 hours.
If the value of the stolen property is within 2,500 rubles, then the fine will be at least 3 thousand rubles, and community service will be up to 120 hours.
An option is possible in which petty theft is aggravated by a number of circumstances - penetration into a room or home, theft from clothing or a bag, conspiracy, etc. Such an action will be considered a criminal offense and punishable under Art. 158 of the Criminal Code.
The role of a lawyer is important in the investigation and trial of theft cases. It often depends on his experience and qualifications whether the punishment will result in a real sentence, or whether the culprit will get off with a fine and a suspended sentence. To learn more about your rights in such a situation, contact our lawyers by phone or online.
What evidence might there be?
The evidence base may vary depending on what type of theft occurred . Let's look at the theft of funds. In this case, the crime can be committed anywhere, on the street, in a store and other places. In case of such theft, you need to clarify:
- denomination of banknotes that were stolen;
- exact amount;
- the location where the incident occurred;
- whether witnesses were present (if so, their testimony must be obtained);
- Is there video footage from a surveillance camera?
Video footage can be obtained from the store where the crime occurred. To do this, the investigator will need to draw up a seizure report. The investigative action is carried out with the permission of the administration.
Money can be stolen from the apartment. This type of act is classified as a qualified act. The person who will be inspecting the scene of the incident should pay attention to:
- which of the close relatives, friends or acquaintances of the owners knew that there was a certain amount of money in the apartment and would be able to confirm this in court;
- what amount was kept in the house;
- are there any signs of forced entry on the door;
- Are there any traces of the criminals left on the windows?
In the case where property was stolen, it could be a phone or another thing, you can prove it using the following data:
- an accurate description of the item (the victim must indicate the make, model, if any, damage and other distinctive features);
- the place where the theft occurred;
- description of the offender if the victim is unfamiliar with him.
A person can steal things or money with an accomplice. Complicity must also be proven, but note that the objective side of the act is not necessarily carried out by several people. There may be an accomplice who gave advice, instructions, helped to hide or sell stolen goods, etc. After collecting the necessary evidence, the criminal case is sent to the court for consideration. The testimony of an accomplice can play a big role in court if it is incriminating.
Article for theft: general composition
The law defines an unambiguous attitude towards theft - it is a criminal act, the consequence of which is damage to the property of a citizen. The elements of the crime and the punishment that will follow are defined in Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Art. 7.27 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation.
The main signs of theft are:
- causing damage to the property owner;
- secret (unnoticeable) removal of it;
- receipt of benefits by the person who committed the crime;
- intentional actions of the criminal.
Secret, unnoticed taking of someone else's property distinguishes theft from robbery (Article 161 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). In a robbery, the taking of something belonging to another person is carried out openly - the criminal knows that he is being watched, but continues to act. If physical force or weapons were used, then this is robbery (Article 162 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The object of theft is always property. The following items prohibited by law and withdrawn from circulation cannot be the subject of theft:
- weapon;
- psychotropic and narcotic drugs;
- radioactive substances.
The criminality of actions with these objects and substances is determined by completely different articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and is punished much more severely.
A person who commits a theft can be considered a criminal if he is over 14 years old and has legal capacity.
The criminal will be punished only if he uses the stolen property, which confirms the deliberate and selfish nature of his actions. If someone else's property is stolen, but the attacker did not have time to use it, the crime will be considered an attempted theft.
The law defines the following sanctions:
- a fine in a fixed amount, or established based on the income of the offender;
- working up to 360 hours in community service;
- correctional and forced labor for up to 12 and 24 months, respectively;
- arrest up to 120 days or imprisonment up to two years.
Algorithm of actions when proving
Once the owner of an item has learned that it has been stolen, you must immediately take action and contact law enforcement agencies. After initiating a case, the investigator must follow a certain algorithm of actions. Initially it turns out:
- in fact, a crime was committed, or a staging took place;
- place, time and method of commission;
- what means the criminal used to achieve his goal;
- who owns the thing;
- whose property was stolen;
- the amount of damage caused by the act;
- description of things;
- where the stolen items are located;
- circumstances that contributed to the person committing theft;
- how many people took part in the crime, and what their role was.
The following are possible versions:
- the act took place;
- the owner of the thing or money is voluntarily mistaken that an illegal act has been committed;
- staged theft.
At the initial stage of the investigation you need to:
- Question the person who filed the application or the owner of the property. You need to find out under what circumstances the crime was committed, the number of criminals, and the amount of stolen goods.
- Question witnesses. The signs of the perpetrators, their number, and the transport in which they traveled are established. It turns out whether the criminals addressed each other by name, whether there are any special features of speech or voice. Based on the description, a portrait of the thief is drawn up.
- Assign examinations. In this case, examinations that have forensic significance are used. Traces of break-ins, vehicles, and criminals that they left at the crime scene will be examined.
Important! During the interrogation of the person who is responsible for the safety of the property, as well as the owners, it is worth keeping in mind the possibility of staging. The purpose of such behavior may be embezzlement, misappropriation, etc.
At the initial stage, catch the criminal red-handed. This can be done by witnesses, the victim himself, or police officers who were near the scene of the crime. After arrest you will need:
- conduct a site inspection;
- search the thief;
- establish the identity and place of residence of the offender;
- find and interrogate all witnesses and victims;
- interrogate the detainee;
- inspect the seized items.
If you were robbed, how can you stop regretting your losses?
I was sitting in a cafe. She hung the bag on the back of the chair. I got ready to leave, wanted to pay, turned around - there was no bag. At first I didn’t understand anything. Then I realized: it was stolen. A bag containing: money, cell phone, apartment key.
They let me out of the cafe with the bill unpaid. They apologized and said that I could, of course, write a statement addressed to management. I had no time for that. I was walking down the street in an unknown direction. My first thought was: call a friend! Hands reached out to open the bag, take out the mobile phone - and dropped. There is no mobile phone!
Thought two: ask kind people to call from their mobile phone! Hooray! I began to look for a kind face in the crowd... but - I don’t know the number, not a single mobile number, not even my mother’s!
Thought three: go home soon! On the subway, ask your aunt to let you through without money, take her word for it, get home... but - thought fourth - there are no keys!
And then for the first time in my life I felt like a homeless person. A completely helpless person without everything: without a home, without money, without communication. The experience was so strong that I still remember everything to this day.
When I got to my mother (she lives outside the city, I have to go by train), she started: how come it was stolen? How could you hang a bag like that, because you are an adult! How can you be such a crow? I say: Mom, I feel so bad! And she: it’s her own fault!
Answered by psychologist Anton Sorin, associate professor of the Department of Psychology at Moscow State University, candidate of psychological sciences.
- Well, they stole (a bag with a wallet, a cell phone, an apartment key - let’s consider the option of moderate severity), but he himself remained alive and well. Why isn't this comforting? Why do you feel so acutely (whoever it was stolen from knows) personally insulted with all that it entails? After all, these are just things.
– Because theft is always an attack on our “I”. From early childhood, long before the child turns one year old, he begins to master objects and objects of the outside world. In psychology there is a term “transitional objects” - these are things with a special psychological “load” and therefore the most important for contact with the outside world.
For a child, this is a favorite toy with which he spends a lot of time: he sleeps with it, “feeds” it, and interacts with the world with its help. With age, other objects take the place of toys, but their essence remains unchanged. The things that we consider to be ours and that are important to us are a way of connecting us, the outside world and social reality.
Therefore, any encroachment on these things causes a very acute, painful reaction. This is an attempt to limit our ability to contact reality, to trust the world (which suddenly turned out to be an unsafe place), to establish relationships with it.
Someone from outside is forcibly invading our sovereign personal space and causing us harm. From this point of view, theft is akin to rape.
In addition, any theft strikes at our sense of control over the reality around us. The robbed person suddenly finds himself in a situation with which he can do nothing. A minute ago he had a mobile phone in his pocket, but now he doesn’t – how can he call his friends, ask for help? The bag was just hanging on the back of the chair, and now it’s gone, and along with it, the documents, wallet, and house keys “floated away” - and we urgently need to adapt to the new situation.
Something irreversible happened, you couldn’t stop it and you can’t return everything “as it was.” And it happened unexpectedly. And a person needs to very quickly solve a lot of serious problems: how to get to the house, how to get into the apartment.
A person feels helpless, and this is a difficult test for the psyche. After all, you can be in a state of peace only by controlling reality within possible limits, and in the case of theft, control is lost, you are forcibly placed in new life circumstances.
Any situation in which a person loses control over what is happening is “read” by the consciousness as threatening and causes a response - anxiety and, accordingly, aggression.
It seems to us that aggression is a way to regain control of the situation. And, strange as it may sound, often this aggression is not directed at the thief, but... at oneself.
After the theft, self-blaming thoughts often swirl in my head: if I had put my wallet in my bag and not in my pocket, it would not have been taken out, if I had not put my mobile phone on the table, it would not have been “stolen.”
Over and over again we relive the situation before the robbery, reproaching ourselves for not laying down straw.
To some extent, such self-blame is embedded in us from childhood - by parents, teachers, society. We were all taught that responsibility for what happens to us, for our mistakes and failures, entirely with us. From birth, a child hears that if he cannot cope with a situation, then the only reason for this is himself: he is not smart enough, not persistent and persistent enough, and so on.
And this accompanies us all our lives. You were robbed - you’re a fool, you should have kept your eyes open. Your husband beats you - I chose this myself. Raped means she provoked. Whatever happens to you, it is your own fault - this is a well-translated and familiar social norm.
As a result of such upbringing, we are not always able to correctly assess the boundaries of what is subject to our control and what is outside it, where we are truly responsible and “ourselves to blame,” and where we are not responsible and to blame. It is possible and necessary to fight the accusatory attitudes that have been ingrained in us since childhood. It is necessary to accustom ourselves to the idea that not everything in this world is under our control, and even more so, the actions of others are beyond our control.
Of course, there can be no “one is to blame” when it comes to illegal actions directed against us.
No one can be to blame for being robbed, beaten, or raped. No action on our part gives permission for other people to treat us this way. Otherwise, for example, in the case of rape or beating, the victim would share criminal responsibility with the offender, but this is not the case, even if the victim’s actions are considered “provocation.”
– How to stop thinking about losses? How to calm down, get out of the endless circle of thoughts: so much money! You could spend it on this and that. And the mobile phone, buy a new one again. How to come to your senses and calm down?
– Bad thoughts need to be overcome with good thoughts: try to find at least a drop of positivity in what happened. In general, do not neglect self-comfort during a difficult period for you.
Got your cell phone stolen? This is a reason to buy a new one, more convenient than the previous one. Or your loved ones have solved the problem of what to give you on your birthday. Lost contacts? In our age of social networks, this loss can be at least partially compensated, and at the same time there will be a reason to get acquainted with data storage services.
Don't worry alone. Almost any grief (theft, for sure) will pass faster if you share it with others: complain, tell how hurt and bad you are, how outraged you are, how you didn’t expect it, how this happened to you for the first (second, nth..) time It happened. People who are not even close acquaintances can sympathize and suggest ways out if the situation is quite difficult.
It is important to remember: theft is our loss of control over the world, and loss of control leads to anxiety and aggression.
Try not to pour out this aggression on your neighbors, they are not to blame for anything.
Don't turn your complaint into endless whining. This will very quickly kill all sympathy for you. Complain, but stick to the role.
Celebrate the good, albeit unobvious, that what happened has brought into your life. If you try, you will definitely notice. Maybe, having learned about the theft, you were offered help by a person from whom you never expected it? Or he simply sympathized so warmly that you were convinced that he treats you well! Or did a friend of many years confirm the reliability of the friendship by lending you the required amount without question? Or maybe you found out how many people generally sympathize with you in such an unpleasant situation? Maybe you felt how loved you were in your family? Or have you realized that in a difficult situation you are able to take a blow?
– How do you know whether to contact the police or not? It’s clear that if the theft is large, contact us, but what if it’s on the scale of a bag? After all, calling the police also requires strength, and the person is already upset.
– You definitely need to respond to theft. Even if these actions are not aimed at obtaining results. For example, if our property was stolen, then we are faced with a choice: to contact law enforcement agencies or not. On the one hand, a crime has been committed, but on the other (especially if something not very valuable is stolen) it is clear that no one in the police will be particularly zealous and the chance that a stolen mobile phone or wallet will be returned to us is small. Therefore, many people “forgot” and do not contact the authorities, believing that there is no benefit from this.
But from a psychological point of view, there are benefits! Even if we understand that our appeal will be of little use, it is still our way of reacting to the situation, our actions aimed at coping with new circumstances. We are taking control of our lives again. We are doing something to find the criminals, and perhaps to return what was lost. Concrete, logical actions will help us calm down and gain confidence.
But when you were worried and did everything you could, or, for example, did not do anything - contact the police (here everyone uses their own resources), it is important to accept the situation and come to terms with it. It has already happened. It is not in your power to change the past.
Now I will say something that is beyond the scope of psychology: you can try to find a “higher meaning” in what happened.
If you were worried, you were consoled, but you still don’t calm down, maybe things have begun to take up too much of your life? And are they hinting at a reorientation of values from above? This is a topic for thought.
And the criterion of reconciliation in our case will be consent to the loss after the fact.
– If a family member, child, friend, colleague was robbed, how should you react? Often people want to console, but it only makes things worse.
– You can’t blame, scold and laugh at. “Well, why are you such a bungler, I suppose the raven was counting - so they pulled out the wallet.” “It’s your own fault, next time you’ll keep your money in the bank and not at home.” Think about why you are saying this?
Everyone is strong in hindsight, there is no sense in such moral teachings, but the person is already in bad shape, is it possible to finish him off?
After this, you can’t count on a trusting relationship. And in such a situation, I would recommend to the victim himself to interrupt the conversation and simply leave, because the interlocutor is clearly not able to correctly assess the situation.
Most often, those closest to you begin to scold: parents - children, children - elderly parents, spouses - spouses. It is clear that if a member of your family suffered, you yourself suffered (including financially). Your anger is natural. But think: by scolding, you are simply throwing out your anger and freeing yourself from negativity. You feel better. And for your loved one, who has already suffered and is worried himself (no matter how he holds on) - it’s even harder.
If you are kind and want to cheer up a person, then here are a few things you should not do:
“ You can’t discount what happened.” “Nonsense, just a mobile phone was stolen, no big deal.” “Just think, they took out the wallet, they didn’t stab him to death.” The robbed will feel that the well-fed does not understand the hungry, you do not understand what he is going through, and you do not want to understand. As a result, instead of supporting you, you will only force the person to withdraw into himself, because in your eyes he looks stupid and funny - he is worried about such nonsense.
“ It’s risky to look for positive aspects with him in the fact that the theft happened. Well, unless the person who was robbed asks you about it and you understand that he is able to treat such conversations with a bit of humor. Otherwise, it may be taken as ridicule and devaluation of what happened. A person may get angry: they say, you are not in my shoes, it’s easy for you to make up all sorts of nonsense.
– It is imperative to say that the person who was robbed is not guilty of anything. It was the thief who committed the crime, not him. If appropriate, you can and should offer help. You can invite him to take some specific actions - for example, go to the police, write a statement. The main thing is for the person to feel that you do not consider what happened to be nonsense and understand his experience.
Just don’t get carried away with the role of a vest, so that the robbed person is not tempted to turn into an ever-whining victim.
Postscript from the editor:
“When you are robbed, you should not grieve, but imagine that you gave alms, and the Lord will return ten times more. - Venerable Joseph Optinsky
“In one of the lives of the Kiev-Pechersk saints it is said: if someone does not regret the money stolen from him, then this will be imputed to him more than arbitrary alms.” - Venerable Ambrose Optinsky
Drawings by Dmitry Petrov
What to do if there are no witnesses
Situations may occur where little evidence has been collected in the case. In this case, there are no witness statements due to the fact that there are no eyewitnesses to the illegal act. In this case, it is necessary to analyze where the crime was committed. If there are surveillance cameras, you should immediately remove the footage from them.
Also, proof may be based on the damage that the criminal committed at the time of theft. They can cut a bag or item in order to take possession of property. Then it will be necessary to properly record the traces and conduct examinations.
The importance of the volume of property damage
For theft to be defined as petty, the value of the stolen personal item must be less than a thousand rubles. The price is set not according to the value established by the owner, but during an examination. If the stolen item did not have a set price at the time of the theft, an assessment is also carried out by an appointed expert.
To protect their rights, a person who has been caught or accused of theft must engage a lawyer who will ensure that the procedure prescribed by law is followed and the value of the property is correctly determined.
This is important for someone accused of theft - the price of the stolen property affects not only the determination of the degree of material damage, but also the type of offense (administrative or criminal) and the measure of punishment.
