Crimes against property are offenses that target someone’s belongings or financial interests rather than their physical safety, and they span everything from shoplifting to multimillion-dollar fraud. What ties them together is intent: prosecutors generally have to prove you meant to take, damage, or misuse property that wasn’t yours. Penalties scale with the value involved, the method used, and whether anyone was hurt. At the low end you’re looking at a fine and a misdemeanor record. At the high end, federal wire fraud carries up to 20 years, or 30 years when a financial institution is involved.
Theft
Theft is taking someone else’s property with the intent to keep it permanently. Every state splits theft into misdemeanor and felony tiers, but the dollar line falls in very different places. Most states set the felony threshold between $1,000 and $1,500. A few go as low as $200; others reach $2,500. Where your case lands on that scale decides whether you face a few months in county jail or years in state prison.
Petty Theft
Petty theft covers stolen property below the state’s felony cutoff. It’s usually a misdemeanor, punishable by fines, probation, community service, or up to a year in jail. Minor on paper, but it still shows up on background checks and can complicate employment, housing, and licensing.
Grand Theft
When the value crosses the felony threshold, the charge becomes grand theft. Consequences climb sharply: heavier fines, restitution to the victim, and prison time measured in years. Sentencing depends on the amount taken, how it was taken, and prior convictions. A felony theft conviction can also cost you certain civil rights, including firearm possession and, in some states, the right to vote while incarcerated.
Shoplifting
Shoplifting is retail theft and follows the same misdemeanor-or-felony split based on the value of the merchandise. First-time offenders with low-value items generally face misdemeanors. Repeat offenses or high-value takes push into felony territory. Most states also let retailers send a civil demand letter seeking payment for their losses, often several hundred dollars above the value of the goods. Paying that demand does not stop criminal prosecution; the two tracks run independently.
Receiving Stolen Property
You don’t have to be the thief to face charges. Buying, possessing, or reselling property you know or reasonably should know is stolen is a separate offense, charged as misdemeanor or felony based on value. Federal law adds up to ten years in prison for knowingly possessing stolen goods worth $5,000 or more that crossed state lines.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2315 – Sale or Receipt of Stolen Goods, Securities, Moneys, or Fraudulent State Tax Stamps Prosecutors focus on the “knew or should have known” element. Buying a brand-new laptop for $50 out of someone’s trunk is exactly the situation courts treat as constructive knowledge.
Burglary
Burglary is entering a building without permission while intending to commit a crime inside. The intended crime doesn’t have to be theft, and you don’t have to succeed. Intent at the moment of entry is enough. That surprises people who assume burglary and theft are the same thing. You can be convicted of burglary even if you left empty-handed.
States grade burglary by degree, and the biggest factor is whether someone was home. Breaking into an occupied dwelling at night is the most serious form, often a high-level felony carrying lengthy prison terms. Breaking into an unoccupied home drops the severity a degree or two. Commercial burglary — warehouses, offices, retail stores — generally falls into the lowest burglary tier but remains a felony in most states. The logic is straightforward: the greater the risk of a face-to-face encounter with an occupant, the higher the charge.
A conviction requires proof of unauthorized entry and criminal intent at the time of entry. Defense attorneys often attack the intent element. Someone who wandered into an unlocked building without planning a crime may beat the burglary charge, though a trespass charge could still stick. Permission is another common defense: if the owner invited you in and you later took something, that’s a theft charge, not burglary.
Robbery
Robbery sits between property crime and violent crime because it involves taking property directly from a person through force, intimidation, or threats. That personal confrontation is what separates robbery from theft and drives its heavy penalties.
Armed vs. Strong-Arm Robbery
The law draws a sharp line between armed and unarmed. Armed robbery involves any weapon, including a firearm, knife, or object used as a weapon during the crime. Strong-arm robbery, sometimes called mugging, relies only on physical force. Armed robbery carries significantly longer sentences, and even claiming to have a weapon you don’t actually possess is typically charged as armed robbery. Federal bank robbery shows the gap: the base offense reaches up to 20 years, using a dangerous weapon or causing physical harm pushes it to 25 years, and a robbery resulting in death can mean life imprisonment.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2113 – Bank Robbery and Incidental Crimes
Carjacking
Federal law treats carjacking as its own offense when the vehicle has crossed state lines. Taking a motor vehicle from someone by force or intimidation carries up to 15 years. Serious bodily injury pushes the maximum to 25 years. A death can bring life imprisonment.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2119 – Motor Vehicles Most states have parallel statutes with similar penalty structures.
Arson
Arson is intentionally setting fire to property. It’s among the most dangerous property crimes because fire is unpredictable, and destruction of property can quickly become a threat to human life. States classify arson in degrees based on two questions: was the building occupied, and was anyone hurt?
First-degree arson involves an occupied structure and carries the harshest penalties, often comparable to violent felonies. Second-degree arson covers fires set when someone was or could reasonably have been present. Third-degree arson applies to intentionally burning an unoccupied building or vehicle. Federal penalties for using fire or explosives against property involved in interstate commerce run 5 to 20 years, rising to 7 to 40 years when someone is injured. If a death results, the sentence starts at 20 years and can reach life.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 844 – Penalties
Insurance fraud is one of the most common motives, and investigators look for it in nearly every suspicious fire. Setting fire to your own property to collect on a policy stacks fraud charges on top of the arson itself.
Vandalism
Vandalism is intentionally damaging or defacing property you don’t own: spray-painting a wall, smashing windows, keying a car. The misdemeanor-felony line depends on how much damage you caused. Thresholds vary widely by jurisdiction, but the repair or replacement cost drives the charge level. Damage to government property, religious buildings, or historical landmarks often triggers enhanced penalties regardless of dollar amount.
Beyond fines and possible jail time, vandalism convictions almost always come with a restitution order for the damage. For graffiti offenses, courts in many jurisdictions can order community service specifically involving graffiti removal.
Trespass
Trespass is entering or remaining on someone else’s property without permission. It’s the least severe crime in this category but still carries real consequences. Criminal trespass is typically a misdemeanor punishable by fines and up to a year in jail. Aggravated trespass — entering with the intent to threaten or intimidate someone inside — bumps the charge higher.
For criminal trespass to stick, prosecutors generally have to show you had notice that entry was forbidden. Notice can take several forms: verbal warnings, written communication, posted “No Trespassing” signs, fencing obviously designed to keep people out, or painted markings on trees or posts. Wandering onto unmarked, unfenced land that looks public may not meet the threshold. Property owners also have a separate civil remedy and can sue for damages independently of any criminal case.
Embezzlement
Embezzlement is theft by someone who was trusted with the property in the first place. An employee skimming from the register, a financial advisor diverting client funds, a treasurer draining an organization’s accounts. The common element is legitimate access that was abused. That breach of trust is what separates embezzlement from ordinary theft and often makes judges less sympathetic at sentencing.
Penalties scale with the amount taken. Small-dollar embezzlement may be a misdemeanor. Large-scale embezzlement in a corporate or financial setting can be a serious felony. Federal law takes an especially hard line when banks are involved: a bank employee who embezzles more than $1,000 faces up to 30 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $1,000,000.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 656 – Theft, Embezzlement, or Misapplication by Bank Officer or Employee Companies try to prevent embezzlement through dual-signature requirements and regular audits, but trusted insiders know where the gaps are.
Forgery
Forgery is creating or altering a document to deceive someone. Checks, contracts, identification documents, deeds, and prescriptions are the most commonly forged items. Prosecutors have to prove you intended to defraud. Accidentally signing the wrong name on a form isn’t forgery.
A related but separate offense is “uttering,” which means passing a forged document off as genuine. You can be charged with uttering even if someone else created the forgery, as long as you knew it was fake and tried to use it. Prosecutors often charge both together. Penalties depend on the type of document and the financial harm, ranging from misdemeanor fines for low-value forgeries to felony prison time for forged financial instruments or government documents.
Fraud and Identity Theft
Fraud is the broadest property crime category. It covers any scheme that uses deception to take someone’s money or property. Unlike theft, which relies on physically taking something, fraud works through lies: false representations, concealed information, or abuse of a position of trust.
Mail and Wire Fraud
The two most commonly charged federal fraud offenses are mail fraud and wire fraud. Mail fraud applies when someone uses the postal service or a private carrier as part of a fraudulent scheme. Wire fraud covers schemes that use electronic communications: phone calls, emails, texts, or internet transactions. Both carry a maximum of 20 years in federal prison.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1341 – Frauds and Swindles When the fraud targets a financial institution, the maximum jumps to 30 years and a $1,000,000 fine.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1343 – Fraud by Wire, Radio, or Television Nearly every fraud scheme involves either the mail or electronic communications, which gives federal authorities jurisdiction over cases that might otherwise be handled at the state level.
Identity Theft
Federal law treats identity theft with rising severity depending on how the stolen identity is used. The base offense of fraudulently producing, transferring, or using identification documents carries up to 5 years in prison for most cases, and up to 15 years when the crime involves certain government-issued documents or large-scale operations.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 1028 – Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Identification Documents, Authentication Features, and Information When identity theft is used to facilitate drug trafficking or violent crime, the maximum reaches 20 or even 30 years.
The real hammer is the aggravated identity theft statute. Using someone else’s identity during any of dozens of listed federal felonies triggers a mandatory two-year prison sentence that runs consecutively, added on top of whatever sentence you receive for the underlying crime, with no possibility of running the sentences at the same time.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 1028A – Aggravated Identity Theft Prosecutors use this statute aggressively because the mandatory add-on gives defendants a strong incentive to cooperate or plead.
Common Defenses
Property crime charges are not automatic convictions. Because most of these offenses require specific intent, the fight is often about mental state rather than conduct.
- Claim of right. If you genuinely believed the property was yours, even if you were wrong, the intent element of theft is missing. The belief has to be honest and not so unreasonable that a court would treat it as a pretext. Taking property openly, without hiding it, strongly supports this defense.
- Lack of intent. Burglary, theft, and fraud all require specific intent. Entering a building by mistake or taking property accidentally can defeat the mental state the charge requires. Intoxication or mental incapacity can sometimes negate intent, though courts are skeptical of voluntary intoxication defenses.
- Consent. If the property owner gave you permission to enter or use the property, there’s no trespass or burglary. The question is whether the consent was genuine and covered the specific conduct charged.
- Necessity. Damaging or taking property to prevent a greater harm — the classic example is breaking into a cabin to survive a blizzard. The defense requires no reasonable alternative, that you didn’t create the emergency, and that you caused less harm than you prevented.
- Duress. A threat of serious, immediate harm unless you committed the crime can support a duress defense. The threat has to be serious enough that a reasonable person in your position would have felt they had no choice.
What Happens After a Conviction
The sentence is often the beginning of the consequences, not the end.
Restitution and Victim Recovery
Federal law requires judges to order restitution in property crime cases where an identifiable victim suffered a financial loss. The defendant either returns the property or pays the victim an amount equal to its value, using whichever is greater between the value on the date of the crime and the value on the date of sentencing.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3663A – Mandatory Restitution to Victims of Certain Crimes Most states have similar mandatory provisions. Victims can also submit an impact statement before sentencing that judges weigh alongside sentencing guidelines.11Department of Justice: Criminal Division. Victim Impact Statements On top of criminal restitution, victims can file a separate civil lawsuit for conversion, which allows recovery of fair market value, consequential damages like lost wages, and in especially malicious cases, punitive damages.
Employment and Licensing
Felony convictions show up on background checks and can disqualify you from jobs in finance, education, healthcare, government, and any field requiring a professional license. Licensing boards weigh the nature of the crime, how it relates to the profession, how much time has passed, and evidence of rehabilitation. Fraud and embezzlement convictions are particularly damaging for anyone handling money or sensitive information.
Immigration
For non-citizens, property crime convictions can trigger deportation or make you inadmissible. The State Department classifies fraud, larceny, forgery, and theft involving intent to permanently take property as crimes involving moral turpitude, which is a ground for visa denial and removal.12Department of State. Foreign Affairs Manual – Ineligibility Based on Criminal Activity – INA 212(A)(2) A limited petty offense exception exists, and waivers may be available for immigrants who can show rehabilitation and that at least 15 years have passed. Any non-citizen facing a property crime charge should consult an immigration attorney before accepting a plea.
Housing and Credit
Landlords routinely screen for criminal history, and a theft, burglary, or fraud conviction can make renting difficult. Some convictions also trigger restrictions on obtaining certain types of loans, and a fraud conviction can effectively close the door on credit-dependent opportunities for years. Expungement or record sealing is available in many states after a waiting period, but eligibility rules and timelines vary considerably.