Q: What measures may individuals take to protect personal property? Are there limits to those protections? Should a personal property owner be liable under any circumstances if a thief is injured or dies during an attempted theft?
A: There are multiple measures that one can take to protect their homes and personal property, including digital security — such as encryption, passwords, and other digital protection — physical security measures — such as security systems, locks, physical barriers, or surveillance cameras —and legal measures — such as contracts, insurance, and other legal ways — to protect themselves and their property.
However, yes, there are certain limitations to these ‘protections’; for example, certain laws might restrict putting booby traps to use. Also, when considering digital
protections, it must be kept in mind that digital security measures can certainly be beaten by hackers. Finally, the legal measures that can be taken may not always provide the full amount of compensation should a loss occur.
Personally, I feel that a property owner should not be held liable for a thief being injured or even killed during an attempted or thwarted theft, as they should not be doing the crime in the first place. It can be incredibly dangerous when one tries to take what belongs to another, that should be understood across the board, and there would be much less thievery. However, legally, this question would be answered different ways in different jurisdictions. In some areas, the property owner
CAN be held liable for the thief being injured or killed if they had placed dangerous ‘booby traps’ or perhaps used ‘excessive force’. Yet, in other jurisdictions, the property owner may be protected by laws such as the "stand your ground" or the "castle doctrine" laws.
Blessings,
Danielle
References
Clarke, R. V. (1999). Hot products: Understanding, anticipating and reducing demand for stolen goods
. Policing and Reducing Crime Unit, Home Office. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office
Dressler, J. (2012). Understanding criminal law
. LexisNexis. https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/understanding-criminal-law
Sookhak, M., Gani, A., Khurram Khan, M., & Buyya, R. (2015). Dynamic remote data auditing for securing big data storage in cloud computing. Information Sciences, 380
, 101-116. https://www.sciencedirect.com/
