Blackmail

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Blackmail is a criminal act of coercion using a threat.

Contents

As a criminal offence, blackmail is defined in various ways in common law jurisdictions. In the United States, blackmail is generally defined as a crime of information, involving a threat to do something that would cause a person to suffer embarrassment or financial loss. [1] By contrast, in the Commonwealth its definition is wider: for example the laws of England and Wales and Northern Ireland state that:

A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces... [2] [3]

In popular culture, 'blackmail' involves a threat to reveal or publicize either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to family members or associates rather than to the general public.

Acts of blackmail can also involve using threats of physical, mental or emotional harm, or of criminal prosecution, against the victim or someone close to the victim. [4] [5] It is normally carried out for personal gain, most commonly of position, money, or property. [4] [6] [7] [8]

Blackmail may also be considered a form of extortion [4] and may be covered in the same statutory provision as extortion. [9] Although the two are generally synonymous, extortion is the taking of personal property by threat of future harm. [10] Blackmail is the use of threat to prevent another from engaging in a lawful occupation and writing libelous letters or letters that provoke a breach of the peace, as well as use of intimidation for purposes of collecting an unpaid debt. [11]

In many jurisdictions, blackmail is a statutory offense, often criminal, carrying punitive sanctions for convicted perpetrators. Blackmail is the name of a statutory offense in the United States, England and Wales, and Australia, [12] and has been used as a convenient way of referring to certain other offenses, but was not a term used in English law until 1968. [13]

Blackmail was originally a term from the Scottish Borders meaning payments rendered in exchange for protection from thieves and marauders. [6] [11] [14] The "mail" part of blackmail derives from Middle English male meaning "rent or tribute". [15] This tribute (male or reditus) was paid in goods or labour ("nigri"); hence reditus nigri, or "blackmail".

Etymology

Blackmail note intended for the Jewish Capon-Minerbo family in hiding during the Axis occupation of Greece Capon-Minerbo Blackmail Note.jpg
Blackmail note intended for the Jewish Capon-Minerbo family in hiding during the Axis occupation of Greece

The word blackmail is variously derived from the word for mailing (in modern terms, protection racket) paid by English and Scottish border dwellers to Border Reivers in return for immunity from raids and other harassment. The "mail" part of blackmail derives from Middle English male, "rent, tribute". [15] This tribute was paid in goods or labour (reditus nigri, or "blackmail"); the opposite is blanche firmes or reditus albi, or "white rent" (denoting payment by silver). An alternative version is that rents in the Scottish Borders were often paid in produce of the land, called "greenmail"[ citation needed ] ('green rent'), suggesting "blackmail" as a counterpart paid perforce to the reivers. Alternatively, Mackay [ obsolete source ] derives it from two Scottish Gaelic words blathaich pronounced (the th silent) bla-ich (to protect) and mal (tribute, payment), cf. buttock mail. He notes that the practice was common in the Scottish Highlands as well as the Borders. [16] In the Irish language, the term cíos dubh, meaning "black rent", was used for similar exactions.

Objections to criminalization

Some scholars have argued that blackmail should not be a crime. [17] [18] [19] [20] Objections to the criminalization of blackmail often rest on what legal scholars call "the paradox of blackmail": it takes two separate actions that, in many cases, people are legally and morally entitled to do, and criminalizes them if done together. One American legal scholar uses the example of a person who threatens to expose a criminal act unless he is paid money. The person has committed the crime of blackmail, even though he separately has the legal right both to threaten to expose a crime and to request money from a person. [21]

See also

In film

Notes

  1. ↑ Blackmail Law: Justicia
  2. ↑ Section 21(1) Theft Act 1968
  3. ↑ Section 20(1) Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969
  4. 1 2 3 Merriam-Webster's dictionary of law . Merriam-Webster. 1996. p.  53. ISBN   978-0-87779-604-6 . Retrieved 23 May 2011.
  5. ↑ The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. 2010.
  6. 1 2 "Blackmail". Merriam-Webster . Archived from the original on 21 October 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2011.
  7. ↑ Burton's Legal Thesaurus. McGraw-Hill Professional. 2006. p. 233. ISBN   978-0-07-147262-3 . Retrieved 23 May 2011.
  8. ↑ The encyclopedia of American law enforcement. Infobase Publishing. 2007. p. 78. ISBN   978-0-8160-6290-4 . Retrieved 23 May 2011.
  9. ↑ Florida Statutes § 836.05 (2024), from Florida Legislature
  10. ↑ Frank Schmalleger; Daniel E. Hall; John J. Dolatowski (2009). Criminal Law Today (4th ed.). Prentice Hall. pp. 271–272. ISBN   978-0-13-504261-8.
  11. 1 2 West's encyclopedia of American law, Volume 2. West Pub. Co. 1998. pp. 569 pages. ISBN   978-0-314-20155-3 . Retrieved 23 May 2011.
  12. ↑ "Legislation View Page". thelaw.tas.gov.au. Archived from the original on 19 September 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2016.
  13. ↑ Griew, Edward. The Theft Acts 1968 & 1978, Sweet & Maxwell: London. Fifth Edition, paperback, ISBN   0-421-35310-4, paragraph 12-01 at page 183
  14. ↑ "Dictionary of the Scots Language:: SND :: black mail". Archived from the original on 15 August 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  15. 1 2 Maeve Maddox (10 May 2011). "The Difference Between Extortion and Blackmail". Archived from the original on 13 July 2011. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
  16. ↑ Mackay, Charles; Ramsay, Allan; May, G. (1888). "Black-mail". A dictionary of Lowland Scotch, with an introductory chapter on the poetry, humour, and literary history of the Scottish language and an appendix of Scottish proverbs. London: Whittaker. pp. 10–12.
  17. ↑ Lindgren (1984) , p. 670: "Most crimes do not need theories to explain why the behavior is criminal. The wrongdoing is self-evident. But blackmail is unique among major crimes: no one has yet figured out why it ought to be illegal."
  18. ↑ Block, Walter, "Blackmail as a Victimless Crime Archived 8 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine ," with Robert McGee, Bracton Law Journal, Vol. 31, pp. 24–28 (1999)
  19. ↑ Block, Walter, "Blackmailing for Mutual Good: A Reply to Russell Hardin Archived 19 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine ," Vermont Law Review, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 121–141 (1999)
  20. ↑ Walter Block, N. Stephan Kinsella and Hans-Hermann Hoppe (July 2000), "The Second Paradox of Blackmail", Business Ethics Quarterly, 10 (3): 593–622, doi:10.2307/3857894, JSTOR   3857894, S2CID   5684396
  21. ↑ Lindgren (1984), pp. 670–71.

Related Research Articles

Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theft</span> Act of taking anothers property without consent

Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word theft is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as larceny, robbery, embezzlement, extortion, blackmail, or receiving stolen property. In some jurisdictions, theft is considered to be synonymous with larceny, while in others, theft is defined more narrowly. A person who engages in theft is known as a thief.

Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear; that is, it is a larceny or theft accomplished by an assault. Precise definitions of the offence may vary between jurisdictions. Robbery is differentiated from other forms of theft by its inherently violent nature ; whereas many lesser forms of theft are punished as misdemeanors, robbery is always a felony in jurisdictions that distinguish between the two. Under English law, most forms of theft are triable either way, whereas robbery is triable only on indictment. The word "rob" came via French from Late Latin words of Germanic origin, from Common Germanic raub "theft".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Extortion</span> Criminal offense of obtaining benefit through coercion

Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded threats in order to obtain an unfair business advantage is also a form of extortion.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to criminal justice:

Burglary, also called breaking and entering (B&E) and housebreaking, is the act of illegally entering a building or other areas without permission, typically with the intention of committing a further criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, larceny, robbery, or murder, but most jurisdictions include others within the ambit of burglary. To commit burglary is to burgle, a term back-formed from the word burglar, or to burglarize.

Criminal conversion is a crime, limited to parts of common law systems outside England and Wales, of exerting unauthorized use or control of someone else's property, at a minimum personal property, but in some jurisdictions also applying to types of real property, such as land or to patents, design rights and trademarks. It differs from theft in that it does not include the element of intending to deprive the owner of permanent possession of that property. As such, it is a lesser offense than the crime of theft. Criminal conversion specifies a type of conversion in that it involves criminal law, not civil law.

A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from violence, robbery, ransacking, arson, vandalism, and other such threats, in exchange for payments at regular intervals. Each payment is called "protection money" or a "protection fee". An organized crime group determines an affordable or reasonable fee by negotiating with each of its payers, to ensure that each payer can pay the fee on a regular basis and on time. Protections rackets can vary in terms of their levels of sophistication or organization; it is not uncommon for their operations to emulate the structures or methods used by tax authorities within legitimate governments to collect taxes from taxpayers.

Greenmail or greenmailing is a financial maneuver where investors buy enough shares in a target company to threaten a hostile takeover, prompting the target company to buy back the shares at a premium to prevent the takeover.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theft Act 1968</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Theft Act 1968 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates a number of offences against property in England and Wales.

Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. The term "racketeering" was coined by the Employers' Association of Chicago in June 1927 in a statement about the influence of organized crime in the Teamsters Union. Specifically, a racket was defined by this coinage as being a service that calls forth its own demand, and would not have been needed otherwise. Narrowly, it means coercive or fraudulent business practices; broadly, it can mean any criminal scheme or operation with ongoing or reoccurring profit, as defined in the 1970 U.S. RICO Act, which aimed to curtail the power of the Mafia and other organized crime.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, taking without owner's consent (TWOC), also referred to as unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle (UTMV), describes any unauthorised use of a car or other conveyance that does not constitute theft. A similar offence, known as taking and driving away, exists in Scotland.

The Pakistan Penal Code, abbreviated as PPC, is a penal code for all offences charged in Pakistan. It was originally prepared by Lord Macaulay with a great consultation in 1860 on behalf of the Government of British India as the Indian Penal Code. After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Pakistan inherited the same code and subsequently after several amendments by different governments, in Pakistan it is now a mixture of Islamic and English Law. Presently, the Pakistan Penal Code is still in effect and can be amended by the Parliament of Pakistan.

Property crime is a category of crime, usually involving private property, that includes, among other crimes, burglary, larceny, theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, shoplifting, and vandalism. Property crime is a crime to obtain money, property, or some other benefit. This may involve force, or the threat of force, in cases like robbery or extortion. Since these crimes are committed in order to enrich the perpetrator they are considered property crimes. Crimes against property are divided into two groups: destroyed property and stolen property. When property is destroyed, it could be called arson or vandalism. Examples of the act of stealing property is robbery or embezzlement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Death threat</span> Threat to kill

A death threat is a threat, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or group of people. These threats are often designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behaviour, in which case a death threat could be a form of coercion. For example, a death threat could be used to dissuade a public figure from pursuing a criminal investigation or an advocacy campaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Threat</span> Indication of intent of harm

A threat is a communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person. Intimidation is a tactic used between conflicting parties to make the other timid or psychologically insecure for coercion or control. The act of intimidation for coercion is considered a threat.

A terroristic threat is a threat to commit a crime of violence or a threat to cause bodily injury to another person and terrorization as the result of the proscribed conduct. Several U.S. states have enacted statutes which impose criminal liability for "terroristic threatening" or "making a terroristic threat."

A legal threat is a statement by a party that it intends to take legal action on another party, generally accompanied by a demand that the other party take an action demanded by the first party or refrain from taking or continuing actions objected to by the demanding party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish criminal law</span>

Scots criminal law relies far more heavily on common law than in England and Wales. Scottish criminal law includes offences against the person of murder, culpable homicide, rape and assault, offences against property such as theft and malicious mischief, and public order offences including mobbing and breach of the peace. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statutes of the UK Parliament with some areas of criminal law, such as misuse of drugs and traffic offences appearing identical on both sides of the Border. Scottish criminal law can also be found in the statute books of the Scottish Parliament such as the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 and Prostitution (Scotland) Act 2007 which only apply to Scotland. In fact, the Scots requirement of corroboration in criminal matters changes the practical prosecution of crimes derived from the same enactment. Corroboration is not required in England or in civil cases in Scotland. Scots law is one of the few legal systems that require corroboration.

Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law is established by statute, which is to say that the laws are enacted by a legislature. Criminal law includes the punishment and rehabilitation of people who violate such laws.

References

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