Criminal damage in English law

In English law, causing criminal damage was originally a common law offence. The offence was largely concerned with the protection of dwellings and the food supply, and few sanctions were imposed for damaging personal property. Liability was originally restricted to the payment of damages by way of compensation.

As time passed, specific laws were introduced to deal with particular situations as they were judged to require intervention, most particularly alongside the rise of mechanisation and urbanisation during the Industrial Revolution.

The modern law of criminal damage is mostly contained in the Criminal Damage Act 1971, which redefines or creates several offences protecting property rights. The Act provides a comprehensive structure covering merely preparatory acts to the most serious offences of arson and causing damage with intent to endanger life. As such, punishments vary from a fixed penalty to life imprisonment, and the court may order payment of compensation to a victim.

The common law generally treated damage to another's chattels as a civil matter leading only to a right to damages in trespass or nuisance; in the 18th century, Blackstone stated: "The rights of personal property in possession are liable to two species of injuries: the amotion [carrying away] or deprivation of that possession; and the abuse or damage of the chattels, while the possession continues in the legal owner." Blackstone clearly labelled these as "Private Wrongs" in his commentaries, emphasising that property rights were enforced inter partes, and that the State was not necessarily one of the involved parties. In fact, the criminal law only intervened in the case of arson, defining it as "the malicious and wilful burning of the house or outhouses of another man". This protection extended to barns and even "stacks of corn". Arson traditionally attracted the death penalty, and had done so in Roman law.

Whereas the common law protected habitation and sources of wealth and food in a largely agricultural society, the Industrial Revolution, especially the Luddism resulting from workers' perceived threats to their livelihood, required new legislation to match the circumstances. The reaction of Parliament to Luddism was to criminalise machine-breaking – the destruction of textile-making machinery – as early as 1721. Initially the punishment was transportation to the Colonies but as a result of continued opposition to mechanisation the of 1812 made the death penalty available.

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