Attempted larceny is a crime in every U.S. jurisdiction. If you form the intent to steal someone else’s property and take a substantial step toward doing it, you can be prosecuted even if you never lay a finger on the item and the owner loses nothing. The law targets the attempt itself so that police can intervene before a theft is completed.
The Two Elements a Prosecutor Must Prove
An attempt charge rests on two pieces that have to appear together: a genuine intent to commit larceny, and a substantial step toward carrying it out.1OpenCasebook. MPC 501 Criminal Attempt Intent alone is not a crime. Thinking about stealing something, planning it in your head, even researching how to pull it off, generally isn’t enough. An ambiguous action without provable intent isn’t enough either. Both have to be there.
Larceny itself is the unlawful taking of someone else’s personal property with the intent to keep it permanently.2Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. Larceny Accidentally walking off with someone’s umbrella, or borrowing a tool you fully intend to return, doesn’t qualify because the intent to permanently deprive is missing. The same intent requirement carries over to the attempt version of the offense.
What Counts as a Substantial Step
The Model Penal Code, which has shaped state criminal codes across the country, says a person is guilty of an attempt if they purposely do anything that constitutes a “substantial step in a course of conduct planned to culminate in” the crime, and that step must be “strongly corroborative of the actor’s criminal purpose.”3OpenCasebook. Ball/Oberman Crim Law Casebook – MPC on Attempt Liability In plain terms, the conduct has to point toward the theft on its own.
You do not have to touch the property. You do not have to come close to completing the theft. Someone loitering near a store isn’t taking a substantial step. Someone who disables a security camera, hides merchandise in a bag, and heads for the exit before being stopped almost certainly is. Scouting a target may be preparation; showing up with bolt cutters and a getaway driver is not.
How Intent Gets Proven
People rarely announce their plans, so intent is usually built from circumstantial evidence. Prosecutors rely on things like surveillance footage of a defendant concealing merchandise, statements made to accomplices, possession of tools associated with theft (slim jims, lock picks), or a pattern of behavior that only makes sense if the goal was to steal. A person caught reaching into someone else’s bag has a hard time explaining the action as anything else.
The substantial step is typically easier to show because it involves observable conduct. Courts look at the totality of what the person did and ask whether those actions, viewed objectively, strongly suggest they were on their way to committing larceny. The step does not need to be the last one before the theft would be complete; it just needs to be more than planning or thinking.
Defenses That Actually Work
Voluntary Abandonment
Under the Model Penal Code and the states that follow its approach, a person who voluntarily and completely abandons their criminal plan before completing it has an affirmative defense to an attempt charge.1OpenCasebook. MPC 501 Criminal Attempt The operative word is “voluntarily.” A genuine change of heart counts. Backing off because you spotted a security guard does not, because the decision was driven by the risk of getting caught.
Abandonment also fails if the person simply decided to postpone the theft for a better opportunity or switched to a different target. The renunciation has to be complete, not a strategic pause.1OpenCasebook. MPC 501 Criminal Attempt
Impossibility
What if you try to pick a pocket that turns out to be empty? Factual impossibility, where the crime couldn’t be completed because of some circumstance the person didn’t know about, is not a valid defense. The pickpocket who reaches into an empty pocket still committed attempted larceny because both intent and the substantial step were present. That there was nothing to steal is irrelevant.4Legal Information Institute. Impossibility
Legal impossibility is different. If what you believed you were doing isn’t actually a crime, you can’t be convicted of attempting it. This rarely comes up in larceny cases, since taking someone else’s property is clearly illegal, but it occasionally matters in related fraud or regulatory contexts.4Legal Information Institute. Impossibility
Penalties
States handle attempt penalties in two broad ways. Some grade an attempt at the same level as the completed crime, meaning attempted larceny carries the same potential sentence as larceny itself. Others drop the grade by one step, so an attempt at a felony-level theft becomes a lower-grade felony or even a misdemeanor.5Congress.gov. Attempt: An Overview of Federal Criminal Law The Model Penal Code generally treats attempts at the same grade as the completed offense.6University of Pennsylvania Law School. Model Penal Code
Whether attempted larceny is charged as a misdemeanor or a felony almost always turns on the value of the property the defendant intended to steal. Every state sets its own threshold dividing misdemeanor theft from felony theft, and those thresholds vary widely. A misdemeanor conviction typically carries up to one year in a local jail. A felony can mean state prison. Courts may also impose fines, probation, community service, and restitution if any loss actually occurred.
Consequences That Outlast the Sentence
The formal sentence is often the least of the problem. A conviction involving dishonesty follows you into job applications, housing searches, and professional licensing reviews for years. Employers routinely run background checks, and a theft conviction, even for a misdemeanor attempt, raises an immediate flag for any position involving money, inventory, or access to other people’s property.
Licensed professionals face particular risk. State licensing boards in healthcare, law, education, real estate, and finance can suspend or revoke a license based on a theft conviction, and some boards begin investigating on an arrest alone, before any conviction. Landlords screen for criminal records too, and a theft conviction gives them a straightforward reason to deny an application.
For felony-level attempted larceny, additional consequences may include losing the right to vote (temporarily, in some states), losing firearm rights, and becoming ineligible for certain federal benefits. These effects often last far longer than any jail term or probation, which is why defense attorneys sometimes prioritize negotiating a charge down to something that avoids a theft-specific entry on the record.