Criminal Behavior and Crimes against Property - Assignment Example

Crimes against PropertyBrief Description of the Crime In a news article entitled “Man Admits to Smuggling Asian Fossils of Dinosaurs” written by Moynihan (2012) and published online in The New York Times, the author disclosed a type of crime against property that fall into stolen property category. The property stolen was actually described as “a “superb Tyrannosaurus skeleton,” a remnant of a vanished animal that “ruled the food chain of the ancient flood plains that are today’s Gobi Desert”” (Moynihan, 2012, par. 1). The rare fossil was allegedly smuggled fromMongolia without proper documents and authorized permits, categorizing these as stolen property.

Crime Data on this Type of Crime The Bureau of Justice, Criminal Victimization Report (2011) disclosed the relevant statistics pertaining to crimes against property, in general. It was revealed that “the overall property crime rate, which includes burglary and theft, increased 11% between 2010 and 2011, from 125.4 to 138.7 victimizations per 1,000 households” [Bur1210]. The specific type of property crime pertaining to stolen fossils across countries apparently falls under the category: cultural property, art and antiquities which are being governed by the Homeland Security Investigation [USInd].

There were just about 41 cases of cultural heritage repatriations that were specifically enumerated in ICE’s official website since 2003 [USInd1], excluding the recently reported stolen property. As emphasized, “the theft and trafficking of cultural items is a practice that is older than history. What is new about it is how easy it is for cultural pirates to acquire valuable antiquities, artworks and artifacts, fossils, coins or textiles and move them around the globe, swiftly, easily and inexpensively without regard to laws, borders, nationalities or their value to a nation’s heritage” (U.S. ICE, n.d., par. 2). Likewise, it was also noted that “since 2007, more than 6,600 artifacts have been returned to 24 countries, including paintings from France, Germany, Poland and Austria, 15th to 18th century manuscript from Italy and Peru, as well as cultural artifacts from China, Cambodia and Iraq” (U.S. ICE, 2012, par. 12).Motive for the Crime From the news article, it was specifically noted that the perpetuator, Eric Prokopi, was acknowledged to be a commercial paleontologist whose job included obtaining “fossils from around the world, sometimes buying or trading them, and works with museums and major auction houses” (Moynihan, 2012, par. 19). Thus, the stolen fossil was then being auctioned at Heritage Auctions for profit.

As noted, the “dinosaur skeleton sold for more than $1 million” (Moynihan, 2012, par. 2). Connection between Type of Crime and Location of the Crime The type of crime was actually noted to have been perpetuated from Mongolia through fraudulent documentation and could not have been given authorizations since dinosaur fossils were reportedly acknowledged as government property [Moy12]. The perpetuator allegedly aimed to sell these items to the United States due to the lure of greater profits.

Prevention Strategies To prevent these stolen artifacts, fossils, and cultural heritage items from being stolen from one country and sold to another country, stringent examinations of goods must be enforced to determine from the presented documents if indeed, those declared were the ones that are explicitly contained and packed. Likewise, aside from filing criminal charges and penalties imposition with jail terms, the HSI should work more closely with foreign governments that apparently lack the monitoring and surveillance technology for accurate verification and checking of valid documents as well as the veracity of the goods being shipped.

ReferencesBur1210: , (Bureau of Justice, 2012, p. 1), USInd: , (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), n.d.), USInd1: , (U.S. ICE, n.d.), Moy12: , (Moynihan, 2012),