Talk:Trespass

Status in English Law

It is my understanding that in the UK, trespass is NOT an offence. However causing any kind of damage whilst trespassing is an offence. -- SGBailey 08:51 May 4, 2003 (UTC)

Trespass is a civil wrong and will not attract criminal liability unless it is aggravated in some way. It is possible, in a civil claim, to sue a trespasser either to enforce your proprietary integrity or to prevent further instances of trespass. This will not be a criminal offence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.111.135.238 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 27 February 2005 (UTC)

Dirt Biking on property

If a person is caught on the property/or has been seen by security once finally caught.... what can security do to stop them from coming back??...even if the trespasser knows that he/she shouldn't be there.--69.192.168.97 14:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The guard can take a report and refer the matter to the police. If the landowner/manager is really conscientious about following through (ie, not just going through the motions of having security onsite for appearance sake) they will press charges and file for a restraining order. knoodelhed 14:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In English law, as (some one - please sign your contributions!) said it is a tort - a civil wrong. If the tresspasser has not no damage, you will get nominal damages (perhaps £10). If you can prove he has done actual damage, you can make him pay the cost of putting it right. If it is serious enough, you may be able to get an injunction against him. The right of action lies in the person in possession of the land - the tenant if there is one, otherwise the owner. If your concern is with what is happening on neighbouring land, you should consider the tort of nuisance. Scottish and Irish law is probably different. That of other common law jurisdictions may be similar to that of England (but not necessarily). Peterkingiron 23:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Seeing the person had no right to be there in the first place, just have the person arrested and charged with a misdemeanor. The key is does the person have a right to be there. If the private property was fenced in with no public access then the person is trespassing. If not, as in an apartment complex's court yard, no fence, open access from many directions and no "No Trespass" signs, then it is not trespassing. -- NYC 21:52, 22 March 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 161.185.151.219 (talk) 22:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Prevention

I added a new subheading of prevention, with some basic topical sentences and supported by some of my own photography. If people wish to expand it, please do so. Likewise, if it's seen as not wanted in the article, delete it appropriately. Reverieuk 22:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Additional Exceptions

I'm going to be adding a few more minor exceptions to trespassing laws. Feel free to revert if you think it's out of line.--Legomancer 03:24, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Texas

From the article:

A notable exception is the U.S. state of Texas, where it is legal to use deadly force against trespassers after dark (Penal Code § 9.42).

This is not correct; Texas law allows use of deadly force when necessary to prevent theft or criminal mischief (crime of intentionally causing property damage) after dark, but not in case of simple trespass. Texas penal code (main page). - Mike Rosoft 08:11, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Reply to Mike. There are at least 3 great laws working for land owners in Texas.

(1) As you pointed out, you can kill punks trying to tag your (or anyone else's) building (criminal mischief) as long as it's dark.

(2) Day or night, if you need to, you can shot trespassers that won't leave. The statue states:

§ 9.41. PROTECTION OF ONE'S OWN PROPERTY. (a) A person in lawful possession of land or tangible, movable property is justified in using force against another when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to prevent or terminate the other's trespass on the land or unlawful interference with the property.

(3) And the sweet icing on the cake, nonlethal booby traps are legal, too:

§ 9.44. USE OF DEVICE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. The justification afforded by Sections 9.41 and 9.43 applies to the use of a device to protect land or tangible, movable property if: (1) the device is not designed to cause, or known by the actor to create a substantial risk of causing, death or serious bodily injury; and (2) use of the device is reasonable under all the circumstances as the actor reasonably believes them to be when he installs the device. --Unsigned

Whatever the position in Texas, please remember the scope of this article is potentially worldwide. In dealing with a legal concept, such as this, it is inevitable that not every aspect of local or national legislation can be covered. Peterkingiron (talk) 19:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Article quality

Or, rather, lack thereof. The article as it stands is very poor.

• The article needs editing for grammar and so on ("... laws vary from each jurisdiction...").

• The tone is informal and unencyclopaedic ("... you can be fined upto and including £1000 for trespassing on the railway. This is a significant increase from a few years ago...", "For example, if you have a car accident ...").

• The structure is poor. There should be a general introduction and accurate statements of what the law says about trespass in significant jurisdictions.

• The article is full of weasel words. "Most jurisdictions" presumably means "I think it's like this where I live and it seems reasonable to me so I guess everyone else does this too."

• There are almost no references.

Dricherby (talk) 01:24, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

You tagged this article that it was magazine style. I removed that tag because it was defectviely applied. However, this does of course not preclude a tag being re-imposed if appropriate. Personally, I consider the article a reasonable statement, though it is difficult to cover the position in every jurisdiction. Perhaps, too much of the article is a series of bulletted points, but that (I think) is about all that is wrong. Certainly there should be references, but that applies to many articles. Your complaint about "most jurisdictions" is probably justified, I would suggest that you change this to "many jurisdictions". The difficulty is that almost every jurisdiction has its own laws, and its own legal text books. Peterkingiron (talk) 19:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't wish to change it to "many jurisdictions" because I don't know if that's true, either. Hence, I flagged the article as being of poor quality in the hope that somebody who knows about the subject would come along and clean it up. Obviously, the article will never constitute legal advice but it would be much better to have an article with verifiable facts (e.g., "In the USA and England, X is permitted[cite]") rather than one with unverifiable broad statements (e.g., "In most/many/some places, Y is illegal"). Given the current, unverifiable, state of the article, I'd find it very hard to rewrite in a more formal tone without deleting a lot of content.

Dricherby (talk) 20:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Is this true?

"Most jurisdictions do not allow "self-help" to remove trespassers. The usual procedure is to ask the trespassing person to leave, then to call law enforcement officials if they do not. As long as the trespasser is not posing an immediate threat, they cannot be removed by force. It is usually illegal to arrest a trespasser and hold them on the property until law enforcement arrives as this defeats the purpose of allowing them to cure the trespass by leaving. A large exception to this rule are railroads in the United States and Canada, who employ their own police forces to enforce state or provincial trespassing laws. Railroad police have the ability to independently arrest and prosecute trespassers without the approval or assistance of local law enforcement. Further, in many jurisdictions, trespassing on railroad tracks is considered a very severe offense comparable to drunk driving, with severe fines imposed on the tresspassers."

If this were really the case then bodygaurds, private security agencies, ect . . . would be illegal, as would people removing by necessary (though not deadly) force someone that is on their property. I have never heard this before, and would like a citation, our source as this does not even sound remotely right. 216.201.12.177 (talk) 00:42, 25 May 2008 (UTC)