# Why isn't mugging just robbery?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-mugging-just-robbery/697512
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 4, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-mugging-just-robbery/697512 "2014-09-04T19:07:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2014, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-mugging-just-robbery/697512/21 "2014-09-05T07:39:18Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> Not really semantics. Robbery just happened: send many units lights and sirens to find the violent criminal.
>
> Burglary: send a few units to make sure that the residence is clear but generally it’s not an urgent call. (unless you say he’s still in the house)
It is semantics. Semantic issues are not necessarily (or even very commonly) unimportant ones. What I am suggesting, however, is that the guy was being either an idiot or an asshole to expect an agitated citizen to be automatically sensitive to a technical linguistic distinction normally only of importance _within_ the law enforcement professions.
And “a few units”? I should be so lucky! I had one detective constable come round (the next day IIRC).
To be fair though, they did actually catch the culprits (though I think more because of other crimes they had committed than through investigation of mine, and I do not know if they actually got convicted of anything), and I did get back the most valuable of the stolen items.
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2014, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-mugging-just-robbery/697512/22 "2014-09-05T10:17:43Z")
> [@Loach](#):
>
> In general burglary is entering a structure with the intent to commit a crime (usually theft). You don’t have to succeed in taking anything. If you break into a house and steal something you get charged with burglary _and_ theft.
In the UK, I think that breaking and entering _without theft_ would not be burglary, but some lesser crime like criminal damage and trespass. Burglary, by definition, assumes theft. If you break in and assault someone, then that would probably be aggravated trespass and possibly grievous or actual bodily harm.
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### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2014, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-mugging-just-robbery/697512/23 "2014-09-05T20:14:47Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Interestingly enough, at common law, burglary included the requirement that the breaking and entering must be during the nighttime.
Any idea why that was? I’m curious because my hometown’s police report used to include people charged with “nighttime burglary”. I always wondered why that would be different from burglary committed during the day.
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### Author:  [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-mugging-just-robbery/697512/24 "2014-09-05T21:12:18Z")
It was so muggy this morning that the police were kept busy.
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### Author:  [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-mugging-just-robbery/697512/25 "2014-09-05T23:17:16Z")
> [@Mosier](#):
>
> Burglary - Entering a building with the intent to commit a crime (usually Larceny, but also very infrequently used against hookers and drug dealers and other types of criminals, like stalkers)
This definition confused me so I had to look it up. Wikipedia says that trespass is an element of burglary, which makes far more sense to me. Entering a drug dealer’s home is not burglary, but the drug dealer is potentially guilty of burglary if he breaks into an abandoned building to deal drugs out of.
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### Author:  [@CraterLayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CraterLayer)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-mugging-just-robbery/697512/26 "2014-09-06T01:02:27Z")
I was mugged while hitchhiking back in the early seventies. The guy was caught, he was charged with (I’m going by memory) 2 felony assaults,3 felony batterys, and 2 felony charges for robbery (I’m not sure about the word “robbery”, I think they used a different term).
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