Carjacking
[2] 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.
[7] TV series CHiPs season 2 episode 20 airing 2/24/79 has the character Ponch, played by Erik Estrada, using the term carjacking.
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.
"[8] The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 28 active carjackers in St. Louis, Missouri, and based on these interviews concluded that "the decision to commit a carjacking stems most directly from a situated interaction between particular sorts of perceived opportunities and particular sorts of perceived needs and desires, this decision is activated, mediated, and shaped by participation in urban street culture.
"[8] 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 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.
[12] Police departments, security agencies, and auto insurers have published lists of strategies for preventing and responding to carjackings.
[22] 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.
[32] The Associated Press reported that "unlike previous carjackings, in which thieves would strip vehicles for parts or sell them in other states, the recent wave perplexed law enforcement officials because almost all appeared to be done by thrill-seeking young men who would steal the cars for a few hours, drive them around and then abandon them.
"[32] After federal, state, and law enforcement agencies formed a task force, 42 suspects were charged, and carjackings dropped dramatically.
[32] However, national media attention on carjackings in Essex County returned in December 2013, when a Hoboken lawyer was murdered at The Mall at Short Hills in Millburn, New Jersey, while defending his wife from four assailants,[33][34][35] who were all later convicted of the crime.
[37] The significant decrease in carjackings was credited to a coordinated effort by the Detroit Police Department, the FBI, and the local federal prosecutor's office.
The analysis identified six factors that "were influential in the best fitting model: proximity to service stations; convenience/grocery/liquor stores; bus stops; residential and commercial demolitions; and areas with high concentrations of drug arrests and restaurants."
[39] According to the Chicago Police Department, carjackers are using face masks that are widely worn due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to effectively blend in with the public and conceal their identity.
[43] The law of some states, such as Louisiana, explicitly lists a killing in the course of defending oneself against forcible entry of an occupied motor vehicle as a justifiable homicide.
However, a 2008 paper by the Australian Institute of Criminology, analyzing police and insurance records, suggested that fewer than 300 carjackings occur annually in Australia (about 0.5% of all theft incidents in the country).
[10] The paper noted that the low incidence of carjacking compared to the United States is attributable to the low rate of firearm-related crime in Australia and the fact that the "broader socioeconomic picture of Australian society is one of relative good health in terms of wealth distribution and social cohesion" providing little motivation for victimization that is "both personal and violent.
