Carjacking is a robbery in which a motor vehicle is taken over.Michael Cherbonneau, "Carjacking," in Encyclopedia of Social Problems, Vol. 1 (SAGE, 2008: ed. Vincent N. Parrillo), pp. 110-11. In contrast to car theft, carjacking is usually in the presence and knowledge of the victim. A common crime in many places in the world, carjacking has been the subject of legislative responses, criminology studies, prevention efforts as well as being heavily dramatized in major film releases. Commercial vehicles such as trucks and armored cars containing valuable cargo are common targets of carjacking attempts. Carjacking usually involves physical violence to the victim, or using the victim as a hostage. In rare cases, carjacking may also involve sexual assault.
Etymology The word is a portmanteau of car and hijacking. The term was coined by reporter Scott Bowles and editor E. J. Mitchell with The Detroit News in 1991.Pulitzer, Lisa Beth. Crime On Deadline. New York City: Boulevard Books, 1996 The News first used the term in a report on the murder of Ruth Wahl, a 22-year-old Detroit drugstore cashier who was killed when she would not surrender her Suzuki Sidekick, and in an investigative report examining the rash of what Detroit Police call "robbery armed unlawful driving away an automobile" (in dispatch slang shortened to R.A.-YOU-Da) plaguing Detroit.The Detroit News, August 28, 1991
The act of carjacking was widespread long before the invention of the term itself, having previously been categorized simply as robbery.
Studies A study published in the British Journal of Criminology in 2003 found that "for all of the media attention it has received in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, carjacking remains an under-researched and poorly understood crime."Bruce A. Jacobs, Volkan Topalli & Richard Wright, "Carjacking, Streetlife and Offender Motivation" in The British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 43, Issue 4 (October 2003), pp. 673–688. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 active carjackers in St. Louis, Missouri, and concluded that carjacking by their interviewees was motivated by the 'street life' emphasis on "spontaneity, hedonism, the ostentatious display of wealth, and the maintenance of honour."
A study published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography in 2013 noted that "carjacking requires offenders to neutralize victims who are inherently mobile and who can use their vehicles as both weapons and shields." The study noted that carjackers use fear to compel compliance from victims.Bruce Jacobs, "The Manipulation of Fear in Carjacking" in Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 42, Issue 5 (February 2013), pp. 523-544.
A 2008 paper by the Australian Institute of Criminology conceptualized carjackings as falling into four types based on method and motive: organized and instrumental, organized and acquisitive, opportunistic and instrumental, and opportunistic and acquisitive. An example of an organized and instrumental carjacking is a planned carjacking with a weapon to use the vehicle for ramming an ATM to steal cash. An example of an organized and acquisitive carjacking is a planned carjacking to sell the vehicle in a known market. An example of an opportunistic and instrumental carjacking is a carjacking without a weapon to sell "vehicle/parts with no market in mind." An example of an opportunistic and acquisitive carjacking is a carjacking without a weapon to joyride.Lisa Jane Young and Maria Borzycki, Carjacking in Australia: recording issues and future directions , Trends & Issues in Crime & Criminal Justice, No. 351, Australian Institute of Criminology, February 2008.
A 2017 qualitative study published in Justice Quarterly examined auto theft and carjacking in the context of "sanction threats" that promoted fear and influenced "crime preferences" among criminals, thereby redirecting ("channeling") criminal activity. The study showed that "auto thieves are reluctant to embrace the violence of carjacking due to concerns over sanction threat severity they attributed to carjacking—both formal (higher sentences) and informal (victim resistance and retaliation). Meanwhile, the carjackers are reticent to enact auto theft because of the more uncertain and putatively greater risk of being surprised by victims, a fear that appears to overcome the enhanced long-term formal penalty of taking a vehicle by force."Bruce A. Jacobs & Michael Cherbonneau, "Perceived Sanction Threats and Projective Risk Sensitivity: Auto Theft, Carjacking, and the Channeling Effect," Justice Quarterly (March 2017), pp. 1-32.
Prevention and response Common carjacking ruses include: (1) bumping the victim's vehicle from behind, and taking the car when the victim gets out of the vehicle to assess damage and exchange information; (2) staging a fake car accident, sometimes with injuries, and stealing the vehicle of a passerby who stops to assist; (3) flashing lights or waving to get the victim's attention, indicating that there is a problem with the victim's car, and then taking the car once the victim pulls over; and (4) following a victim home, blocking the victim's car in a driveway or in front of a gate.Carjacking—Don't be a Victim, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security (August 2002).
Police departments, security agencies, and auto insurers have published lists of strategies for preventing and responding to carjackings.NOPD crime prevention: How to avoid being carjacked, New Orleans Police Department.Preventing Carjacking / Theft, Insurance Information Institute. Common recommendations include: Staying alert and being aware of one's surroundings Parking in well-lit areas Keeping vehicle doors locked and windows up Avoiding unfamiliar or high-crime areas Alerting police as soon as is safely possible following a carjacking Avoiding isolated and less-well-trafficked parking lots, ATMs, pay phones, etc. When stopped in traffic, keeping some distance between the vehicle in front, so one can pull away easily if necessary. Using the vehicle to ram the carjacker to avoid being confronted in the vehicle; if confronted, it is often safer to give up the vehicle and avoid resisting
Truck carjacking Commercial vehicles such as trucks and armored cars may be targets of carjacking attempts. Such carjackings may be aimed at stealing cargo, such as liquor, cigarettes, valuable goods, consumer electronics or even drugs.Ronald F. Becker & Aric W. Dutelle, Criminal Investigation (4th ed.: Jones & Bartlett, 2013), p. 303. In other cases, a carjacked truck may be used to commit another crime, such as robbery or a terrorist attack.
Knowledge of the location of a truck carrying valuable cargo often requires inside information, and sometimes truck drivers collude with truck carjackers to facilitate the truck carjacking. This crime is often perpetuated by organized crime operations or by career criminals, or by a collaboration between the two.Frank E. Hagan, Introduction to Criminology: Theories, Methods, and Criminal Behavior (6th ed.: SAGE Publications, 2008), p. 287. In particular, La Cosa Nostra has been known to orchestrate the carjacking of trucks at locations such as Kennedy Airport in which a truck driver under Mafia influence allows carjackers to steal the truck.Carl Sifakis, The Mafia Encyclopedia (3d ed.: Facts on File: 2005), p. 195.Jay S. Albanese, Organized Crime in Our Times (6th ed. 2011: Routledge, 2015 ed.), pp. 202-03.
Incidents by country
Argentina Carjacking has been a common problem in Argentina, it is known there as piratería del asfalto (road piracy).
South Africa Carjacking is a significant problem in South Africa, where it is called hijacking.Rory Caroll, Carjacking: the everyday ordeal testing South Africa, Guardian (March 2, 2006). South Africa is thought to have the highest carjacking rate in the world.Linda Davis, Carjacking — Insights from South Africa to a New Crime Problem, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, Vol. 35, Issue 2, 2003, pp. 173-191. There were 16,000 reported carjackings in 1998. The figures dropped to 12,434 reported carjackings in 2005, and continued to drop until 2011 to 2012, when the number of carjackings was 9,475, a record low.Erin Conway-Smith, Carjackings are on the rise again in South Africa, GlobalPost (May 27, 2015). Subsequently, however, carjackings increased as part of an overall increase in violent organized crime, which the Institute for Security Studies attributed to poor police leadership. There were 11,221 reported carjackings in 2014. More than half of all carjackings in South Africa occurred in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The carjacking issue in South Africa was depicted in the 2005 film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, several new, unconventional anti-carjacking systems designed to harm the attacker were developed and marketed in South Africa, where carjacking had become endemic. Among these was the now defunct Blaster, a small flame-thrower that could be mounted to the underside of a vehicle.
United States Federal Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992
In 1992, Congress, in the aftermath of a spate of violent carjackings (including some in which the victims were murdered), passed the Federal Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992 (FACTA), the first federal carjacking law, making it a federal crime (punishable by 15 years to life imprisonment) to use a firearm to steal "through force or violence or intimidation" a motor vehicle that had been shipped through interstate commerce. The 1992 Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2119, took effect on October 25, 1992.Mike Folks, Carjacking Law Getting Little Use: Few Prosecutions Occur Despite Increase in Number of Cases, Sun-Sentinel (January 17, 1994).18 U.S.C. § 2119. However, only a small number of federal prosecutions were imposed for carjacking the year after the act was enacted, in part because many federal carjacking cases were turned over to state prosecutions because they do not meet U.S. Department of Justice criteria. The Federal Death Penalty Act, part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, an omnibus crime bill, made sixty new federal crimes punishable by the federal death penalty; among these were the killing of a victim in the commission of carjacking.Amy D'Olivio, "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act" in Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement (Sage, 2004: eds. Larry E. Sullivan et al.), p. 896.
Throughout 1993, articles about carjackings appeared at the rate of more than one a week in newspapers throughout the country."Carjacking Reports Increase In Area -- Police Told Of Five Incidents Over Thanksgiving Holiday." Seattle Times, Saturday, November 26, 1994 The November 29, 1992, killing of two Osceola County, Florida, men by carjackers using a stolen 9 mm pistol resulted in the first federal prosecution of a fatal carjacking.Henry Pierson Curtis, Youths Steal Guns To Steal Youths' Lives; The Gun Used In The Nation's First Federal Carjacking Case Was Bought Legally, Then Stolen, Orlando Sentinel, January 30, 1994.
Prevalence and statistical analysis According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 1993 to 2002, some 38,000 carjackings occurred annually.Patsy Klaus, National Crime Victimization Survey, Carjacking, 1993-2002, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, July 2004. According to the survey, over this time period men were more often victims than women, blacks more than whites, and Hispanics more than non-Hispanics. 56% of carjackers were identified by victims as black, 21% white, 16% Asian or Native American, and 7% mixed race or unknown. Some 93% of carjackings occurred in urban areas.Benjamin S. Wright, Motor Vehicle Theft, in Encyclopedia of Street Crime in America (Sage 2010: ed. Jeffrey Ian Ross), p. 271.