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Mugging (sometimes called personal robbery or street robbery) is a form of robbery and street crime that occurs in public places, often urban areas at night. It involves a confrontation with a threat of violence. Muggers steal money or personal property, which is worth less than the payouts of commercial robbery but involves less time and planning. They may be motivated by money, cultural capital, or the thrill of the act. The risk of property loss, injury, or psychological trauma causes people to fear becoming victims of mugging.
The concept of mugging originated in 1940s United States, when blackouts of World War II enabled committing crimes in the dark. It soon became the subject of anti-Black racism. In the United Kingdom, a media wave about mugging occurred in the 1970s, before which the concept had not been applied to British crimes. Police departments created "anti-mugging" units. The crime was often committed by West Indian youths, and there were widespread racial stereotypes associating it with Black people. Some leftist criminologists said that the media inaccurately reported a Crime of mugging, including Stuart Hall, who called it a moral panic. Political debate of mugging in the country peaked in the 1980s. In the 1990s, Brazilian media reported a mass mugging phenomenon known as arrastão, a term later used in Portugal.
Mugging is a common term for personal robbery, though personal robbery also encompasses forms of theft such as carjacking. Other terms for personal robbery include snatch theft and street robbery, as it is an example of a street crime. The terms mugging, street robbery, and street crime are often interchangeable, though usage varies.
Mugging often involves an attack on a victim walking alone at night. Perpetrators steal money or valuable personal property such as . Actual or threatened violence is a major aspect of mugging, which often uses weapons such as knives. The level of violence can vary, with some muggings resulting in injury or death. The level of violence and the emotional response contribute to a victim's level of crisis. Victims often face loss of property, injury, or fear, and they may gain psychological trauma. The possibility of such outcomes results in a widespread fear of mugging.
Motives for mugging include need for money, desire to increase social status, and the thrill of the act. The latter two motives are common among younger people, while the need for money often motivates habitual drug users to commit street robbery. Though mugging takes more time than other crimes and brings little money, perpetrators are motivated by a feeling of power. Compared to commercial robbery, street robbery is a more reliable source of money due to its speed, simplicity, and low punishment rate; this is motivating for people who lack legitimate sources of money. Muggers are often motivated by peer pressure, which normalizes the behavior. People involved in gain cultural capital from it.
Street robbery usually occurs in urban areas. It is often associated with night, though it frequently occurs at other times of day. Muggers usually work within small, familiar areas, such as the surroundings of their homes. Street robberies occur within a few of places that are likely to have cash, like stores, bars, illegal businesses, or . Incidents are often clustered at points within cities such as . Many incidents occur in places with activity in the night-time economy; such cases frequently involve alcohol intoxication or violence. Street robbers sometimes target other criminals opportunistically; such cases are less commonly reported to police.
A mugging typically lasts a few minutes. It begins with the perpetrator Risk assessment of conducting the act. Muggers select victims whom they perceive as vulnerable or likely to have money. They may initiate a confrontation by feigning a non-threatening encounter. The confrontation occurs in a short range, enabling personal contact, such as shoving, that may surprise the victim. The perpetrator may display weapons or implicitly threaten violence. They attempt to take control of the victim, which creates an unpredictable situation for both parties based on their perceptions of each other. Though muggers usually do not desire to induce violence, confrontations often become violent when they lose control or perceive resistance.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, many muggers were West Indian youths, largely due to socioeconomic discontent. Police departments strengthened crime control measures. Some, including London's Metropolitan Police and London Transport Police, utilized "anti-mugging" units, which primarily focused on West Indian–majority neighborhoods. Police associated the crime with West Indians, despite high rates of mugging in some cities with low Black populations and a 1976 Metropolitan Police report to the Home Affairs Select Committee that said crime rates of West Indians were the same as the general population. Muggings received disproportionate media attention compared to other crimes that occurred in White-majority areas. Television reports frequently featured elderly women who were victims of mugging, and this demographic gained a widespread fear of the crime, though men were more likely to be victims.
A mugging case in Handsworth, West Midlands, on November 5, 1972, resulted in three teenagers being sentenced to twenty years of prison and received widespread newspaper coverage. A column by commentator John Akass in The Sun, a widely circulated tabloid newspaper, wrote that the case's perpetrator "did not get 20 years for mugging. He got it for attempted murder," and that the punishment was "almost as barbarous as the crime itself". The fatal stabbing of an elderly man, soon after the Handsworth case, was the first individual crime in Britain to be reported with the word mugging. Some leftist criminologists believed that the widespread attention to mugging was a result of the media rather than circumstances contributing to crime. However, Jock Young said in 1976, "It is unrealistic to suggest that the problem of crime like mugging is merely the problem of mis-categorization and concomitant moral panics." In the late 1970s, public opinion largely associated mugging with Black people. Politician Enoch Powell referred to mugging as a "black crime" in 1976. A 1979 study found that two types of crime were disproportionately associated with black youths: mugging and Sus law.
The 1978 book Policing the Crisis, cowritten by Stuart Hall, labeled the phenomenon as a moral panic and argued that the media ideologically conceptualized mugging. The book said that mugging was not defined in law or distinct from existing crimes, but that the concept was influenced by preexisting societal concerns and anti-Black sentiment, as well as by the connotations of the word mugging in America. It argued that political and media figures used mugging to direct public fears about public disorder toward Black youths, that the government used this attitude to secure support, and that media coverage of the Handsworth case exemplified the undue attention to the subject. The book disagreed with the belief that the crime rate was increasing; some critics, including Nob Doran and P. A. J. Waddington, said that its use of statistics was biased. Unlike Hall, Michael Pratt stated that London's rate of mugging was increasing and that the Metropolitan Police's had a legal classification equivalent to mugging. Colin Sumner challenged the description of mugging as a moral panic, saying that media statements did not equate to public opinion.
Discussion of mugging in the British Parliament increased through the 1960s and 1970s (alongside that of burglary) and peaked in the 1980s. By that time, , rather than muggings, were the subject of racialized media coverage. A survey by the Home Office, published in March 1982, recommended community policing to resist mugging and criticized excessive media response, but its findings received little attention. Public fear of mugging peaked in the 1990s and was most prevalent among people who grew up during the era of the media phenomenon.
In the 2000s, conservatives in the United States used the thesis, "A liberal is someone who has not been mugged," in support of a law and order ideology, though being a victim of crimes such as mugging was not correlated with conservatism. American media in the late 2000s frequently reported accounts of "payday muggings", which supposed that Mexican Americans, who were thought to be likely to be undocumented and lack resources, were targeted by primarily Black muggers.
Rates of personal robbery decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom as there was less night-time economic activity.
Mugging is less frequent in Canada than the United States, . In Norway, mugging is rare outside of criminal circles, but incidents are commonly reported in the media.
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