Theft, robbery, and burglary look similar from the outside but protect different things under the law. Theft is taking someone’s property with the intent to keep it. Robbery is theft carried out against a person by force or threat of force. Burglary is entering a building without permission while intending to commit a crime inside. One incident can produce all three charges, and the penalties climb sharply as the crime shifts from property to person to place.
Theft: Taking Property With Intent to Keep It
Theft, historically called larceny, requires taking someone else’s property and carrying it away with the intent to deprive the owner of it permanently.1United States Department of Justice. Criminal Resource Manual 1006 – Larceny The “carrying away” element is satisfied by even the slightest movement. Sliding a phone off a counter into your pocket counts. So does pushing a cart of unpaid merchandise past the register.
The mental element is where cases are won and lost. Prosecutors have to show you planned to keep the item, not borrow it or move it aside. If you genuinely believed the property was yours, that good-faith belief defeats the intent element even if the belief was wrong. Someone who grabs the wrong suitcase off a baggage carousel hasn’t committed theft, because the intent to steal was never formed.
Theft also reaches situations where the owner hands you the item voluntarily but you obtained it by deception. Talking someone into lending you their car by promising to return it in an hour, when you actually plan to sell it, falls inside this definition.1United States Department of Justice. Criminal Resource Manual 1006 – Larceny The owner gave up possession but not ownership, and you exploited the gap. What theft doesn’t involve is force against a person or breaking into a building. Add either of those and the charge changes.
Petty Theft and Grand Theft
Every state draws a line between misdemeanor theft and felony theft based on the value of what was taken, and the line falls in very different places. Some states cross into felony territory at $200. Others don’t upgrade until the property exceeds $2,500. The most common threshold is $1,000. Below the state’s cutoff, you’re looking at petty theft, usually capped at a year in jail. Above it, grand theft can carry years of prison time.
Shoplifting a $950 jacket in one state can be a misdemeanor while the same act next door is a felony. That’s why defense attorneys fight hard over how stolen property is valued.
Robbery: Theft Against a Person, by Force or Fear
Robbery contains every element of theft and adds a confrontation. The FBI defines it as taking something of value from a person’s care or control by force, threat of force, or by putting the victim in fear.2Federal Bureau of Investigation. Offense Definitions That confrontation is what makes robbery a violent crime in every jurisdiction.
The victim doesn’t have to be injured. What matters is the force itself, or a reasonable fear that force is coming. Shoving someone and grabbing a wallet qualifies. So does saying “hand over your phone or else” without touching the person, as long as a reasonable person would feel compelled to comply.3Justia. Criminal Law Robbery Courts also treat purse-snatching as robbery when the snatch overcomes the victim’s grip, because the pull against resistance counts as force.
Here’s a point that catches defendants off guard: the force doesn’t have to come at the moment of the taking. If someone lifts a wallet off a table unnoticed and then shoves the owner while fleeing the restaurant, many jurisdictions treat that as robbery because the force was used to keep the stolen property. That’s where theft quietly becomes robbery.
Simple and Aggravated Robbery
Most states divide robbery into degrees based on how dangerous the encounter was. Simple robbery involves force or threats but no weapon and no serious injury. Aggravated robbery, often first-degree, usually requires one of a short list of factors: the offender was armed with a deadly weapon or displayed something that looked like one, the victim was hurt, the victim was elderly or otherwise particularly vulnerable, or two or more offenders acted together. Aggravated robbery is almost always a high-level felony.
Burglary: Unauthorized Entry Plus Criminal Intent
Burglary is the odd one out because it doesn’t require taking anything at all. The crime is complete the moment someone enters a building without authorization while intending to commit a crime inside.4Cornell Law Institute. Burglary Someone could walk into a garage planning to steal a lawnmower, get spooked by a noise, leave empty-handed, and still be guilty of burglary. The entry plus the intent is everything.
At common law, burglary was narrow: breaking into a home, at night, intending to commit a felony. Modern statutes have stripped most of that away. The nighttime requirement is gone in virtually every state. The “breaking” requirement is gone too, so walking through an unlocked door without permission qualifies. And the building no longer has to be a home. Offices, warehouses, shops, and in many states even locked vehicles fall within the definition.4Cornell Law Institute. Burglary
The timing of intent is where the hardest fights happen. You must have had the criminal purpose at the moment you crossed the threshold. If you enter a store lawfully as a customer and only decide to steal something after browsing for ten minutes, that’s theft but not burglary. Prosecutors prove intent at entry with circumstantial evidence: masks, gloves, pry bars, disabled security cameras, unusual hours.
Burglary Versus Criminal Trespass
The line between burglary and criminal trespass is intent. Trespassing is simply entering or remaining on someone’s property without permission. Burglary adds the requirement that you intended to commit a separate crime inside. A teenager who sneaks into an abandoned building to explore is trespassing. A teenager who sneaks in planning to strip copper wiring is committing burglary. Trespass is usually a misdemeanor. Burglary, even at its lowest degree, is a felony in most states.
The Three Side by Side
The easiest way to keep them straight is to focus on what each crime protects. Theft protects your right to your property. Robbery protects your physical safety during a taking. Burglary protects the security of the places you live and work.
- Theft: taking property with the intent to keep it permanently. No force, no entry required. Can happen anywhere.
- Robbery: taking property through force or threat of force, in the victim’s presence. Always a person-on-person crime.
- Burglary: unauthorized entry into a building with the intent to commit a crime inside. Nothing has to be taken, and no victim has to be present.
Two points surprise people. Burglary doesn’t require theft at all; breaking into a house intending to assault the occupant is burglary even though no property crime was planned. And theft doesn’t require confrontation or entry; pocketing a phone from a gym locker room bench is theft, provided you were otherwise allowed to be in that locker room.
When One Incident Produces All Three Charges
These crimes aren’t mutually exclusive, and prosecutors file every charge the facts will support. Picture someone who forces open a back door of a jewelry store after hours, fills a bag with merchandise, and shoves an arriving security guard on the way out. That’s burglary (unauthorized entry with criminal intent), theft (taking the merchandise), and robbery (using force to escape with the property). Three charges from one incident, each with its own penalty.
The overlap between burglary and robbery is especially common. Entering a home without permission and then threatening the homeowner at knifepoint for valuables is both burglary and robbery. Prosecutors file both because each addresses a different harm, and courts generally allow convictions for both without running afoul of double jeopardy.
Defenses Depend on Which Crime Is Charged
A few defenses recur across all three crimes, but how they land depends on which charge you’re fighting.
Lack of intent is the backbone defense. For theft, prosecutors must prove you intended to keep the property permanently. For burglary, they must prove criminal purpose at the exact moment of entry. Security footage of someone wandering a building looks very different from footage of someone heading straight to the cash register with a crowbar, and that difference is often the case.
Claim of right applies when you honestly believed the property was yours. The belief defeats the intent to steal even if it turns out to be wrong, as long as it was held in good faith. Two roommates with identical laptops, one grabbed by mistake: no theft. This defense doesn’t rescue a robbery or burglary charge, because those crimes punish harms beyond the property itself.
Duress applies when someone committed the crime only because they were threatened with immediate serious harm or death. The threat has to be real and imminent, and you cannot have voluntarily placed yourself in the situation that created it. Participating in a robbery because a gang leader threatened to kill you that night may support duress. Having joined the gang voluntarily and later feeling pressured likely does not.
What a Conviction Actually Costs
The sentence is rarely the full price of a felony property crime conviction.
Under federal law, courts must order defendants convicted of property crimes to return the stolen property or pay the victim an amount equal to its value at sentencing, whichever is greater. If the crime caused physical injury, restitution also covers medical care, rehabilitation, and lost income.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Mandatory Restitution to Victims of Certain Crimes Restitution is mandatory and sits on top of any other sentence. Most states have similar requirements.
Beyond restitution, a felony theft, robbery, or burglary conviction can disqualify you from professional licenses in healthcare, finance, education, and law. Employers in roles involving money or trust routinely screen out applicants with property crime records. Federal law bars felons from possessing firearms. Many states restrict voting rights during incarceration and sometimes after. Landlords commonly run background checks and deny applications on felony records. Some of these restrictions apply no matter how long ago the conviction occurred or what rehabilitation followed. For many people facing charges, these downstream consequences are a stronger reason to fight than the jail time itself.