KIDNAPPING ( from kidnap, originally slang, from kid, slang for child 4- nap, variant of nob). The offense of wrongfully taking and con veying away a person against his will, either by force, fraud or intimidation, or detaining him with Intent to do so. As the origin of the word indicates, it was originally applied only to the aLduct ion of children. but very early in the Eng lish law it was employed to designate the same offense in regard to adults. Blackstone, in his Commentaries, defines it as "the forcible abduc tion or stealing away of a man, woman, or child from their own country, and sending them into another." The term is used in a broader sense an the common law of to-day, and if a person is taken out of his way for any distance in his own country or locality, the person so constraining him is guilty of the crime.
In nearly all of the United States the crime is defined and regulated by statute to-day. enticing a competent adult person away is not sufficient to constitute the crime. There must be an abduct ion against ois will, either actually or constructively. For example, inducing a laborer to go to a far-away island to work, by holding out extravagant promises which the employer does not intend to fulfill, does not conic within the scope of this crime: but getting a sailor in toxicated and taking him aboard a strange ship, with design to detain him until the vessel was under way, and then to persuade or coerce him to serve as a seaman, was held to constitute kidnap ping in York. The crime is also committed if tha consent to such removal and concealment is induced by fraud. or if the victim is legally incompetent to give a valid consent, as in ease of a child of tender years, or a feeble-minded per son.
The essential elements of kidnapping and of false impriminment are about the same, except that the former includes, in addition to a de tention. the act or intention of carrying away the victim to another place, usually for the purpose of avoiding discovery. of the United States have materially increased their statutory penalties for the crime, and the pen alty now varies from ten to twenty-five years' imprisonment.
Of course if one person has a legal right to the custody of the person of another, he may detain or take him away to any place in his discretion. within the proper limits, even though the person thus subject to his control objects to the exercise of this Where two persons have equal rights to the custody of the person of another. it is not culpable for one surreptitiously to take the dependent person from the other. Thus where husband and wife have separated without a legal decree, one may take their children from the other by any peaceable means, even though it be by trick or deception.
The laws of the United States make it a felony to kidnap a person in another country and bring him nere to hold in confinement, or for any in voluntary service. The term abduction as a legal offense is usually restricted to the kidnap ping of a woman for the purpose of marriage or sexual intercourse. See ABDUCTION; FALSE IM PRISONMENT; SLAVERY. Consult the authorities referred to under CRIMINAL LAW.