6.1: Kidnapping
- Page ID
- 69923
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The crime of kidnapping is defined in section 207 of the California Penal Code.
(a) Every person who forcibly, or by any other means of instilling fear, steals or takes, or holds, detains, or arrests any person in this state, and carries the person into another country, state, or county, or into another part of the same county, is guilty of kidnapping.
(b) Every person, who for the purpose of committing any act defined in Section 288, hires, persuades, entices, decoys, or seduces by false promises, misrepresentations, or the like, any child under the age of 14 years to go out of this country, state, or county, or into another part of the same county, is guilty of kidnapping.
(c) Every person who forcibly, or by any other means of instilling fear, takes or holds, detains, or arrests any person, with a design to take the person out of this state, without having established a claim, according to the laws of the United States, or of this state, or who hires, persuades, entices, decoys, or seduces by false promises, misrepresentations, or the like, any person to go out of this state, or to be taken or removed therefrom, for the purpose and with the intent to sell that person into slavery or involuntary servitude, or otherwise to employ that person for his or her own use, or to the use of another, without the free will and consent of that persuaded person, is guilty of kidnapping.
(d) Every person who, being out of this state, abducts or takes by force or fraud any person contrary to the law of the place where that act is committed, and brings, sends, or conveys that person within the limits of this state, and is afterwards found within the limits thereof, is guilty of kidnapping.
(e) For purposes of those types of kidnapping requiring force, the amount of force required to kidnap an unresisting infant or child is the amount of physical force required to take and carry the child away a substantial distance for an illegal purpose or with an illegal intent.43
Kidnapping Act
The criminal act element required for kidnapping is twofold. First, the defendant must confine the victim (720 ILC § 5/10-1). Second, in many states, the defendant must move the victim, which is called asportation. One common issue with the kidnapping criminal act is how far the victim must be moved. In the majority of states, the movement can be slight, as long as it is not incidental to the commission of a separate offense (People v. Dominguez, 2011). Other states do not require asportation when the kidnapping is for ransom (N.R.S. § 200.310, 2011). Some states have done away with the asportation requirement altogether (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-39(a), 2011).
Kidnapping Intent
The criminal intent element required for kidnapping in many jurisdictions is specific intent or purposely to commit the criminal act in order to harm or injure the victim or another, confine or hold the victim in secret (N.R.S. § 200.310(2), 2011), receive a ransom, commit a separate offense, subject the victim to involuntary servitude, or interfere with the purpose of the government or some political function (Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-1304, 2011).44
43California Penal Code (2024)
44University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing (2015)