Carjacking Essay ⋆ Essays on Controversial Topics ⋆ EssayEmpire

Carjacking is the theft of a motor vehicle from another person by force, violence, or intimidation. Although often viewed as a hybrid offense—maintaining elements akin to both robbery and auto theft—carjacking is counted as a robbery in the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports because force is used to accomplish the theft. Defining carjacking in this way is problematic because it hinders systematic understanding of the prevalence, distribution, and nature of the offense. Although some states (e.g., Maryland and New Jersey) collect statewide carjacking data each year, most data about carjacking come from victimization surveys and offender interviews.

Recent estimates from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) indicate that carjacking is a rare offense. On average, 38,000 carjackings occurred annually between 1993 and 2002, a rate of 1.7 carjackings per 10,000 persons. This compared with 24 robbery victimizations per 10,000 persons and 84 motor vehicle thefts per 10,000 households in 2005. As with other forms of violent crime, carjacking has declined in recent years. For example, the NCVS reported an annual average of 49,000 carjackings between 1992 and 1996, a rate of 2.5 per 10,000 persons. From 1998 to 2002 the rate dropped to 1.3 per 10,000 persons.

As in other types of robbery, weapon use is inherent in carjacking. About 75 percent of carjacking victims interviewed by the NCVS between 1993 and 2002 reported that their assailant was armed. The most common weapon was a firearm (45 percent of cases). Despite the high likelihood of weapons, only 24 percent of all victims reported an injury and only 9 percent reported serious bodily injuries. Those most vulnerable to carjacking tend to be male, young, African American, never married or divorced/ separated, and living in urban areas. The carjackers themselves are much like their victims: male, young, and African American. The NCVS reports more than half of carjackings involve two or more assailants, and interviews with offenders indicate that carjacking is a crime of opportunism and spontaneity rather than carefully planned, probably due to the mobility of their targets.

The term carjacking was virtually unknown until the early 1990s when several atypical, albeit, well-publicized and horrific carjacking cases brought national attention to the subject. In the wake of these events, media reports described carjacking as a national epidemic brought on by a new type of auto thief whose misdeeds resembled a symbolic attack on the fabric of people’s lives. Such depictions helped to legitimize carjacking as an important social problem and acted as an impetus for passage of the Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992, which made carjacking a federal offense punishable by sentences ranging from 15 years to life. In 1994, an amendment included the death penalty in carjackings resulting in homicide. Several states also enacted legislation. For example, Louisiana passed the “shoot-the-carjacker” law, giving citizens the right to use lethal force during a carjacking. Florida passed a law to protect its tourism industry after media reports suggested carjackers were purposely targeting tourists in rental cars.

Bibliography:

Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2004. “Carjacking, 1993-2002.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved March 29, 2017 (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/c02.pdf).
Cherbonneau, Michael and Heith Copes. 2003. “Media Construction of Carjacking: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Articles from 1993-2002.” Journal of Crime and Justice 26:1-21.
Jacobs, Bruce A., Volkan Topalli, and Richard Wright. 2003. “Carjacking, Streetlife and Offender Motivation.” British Journal of Criminology, 43:673-88.

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