RBMS Security Committee: State Laws: North Carolina
The RBMS Security Committee attempts to maintain a current list of statutes from each of the fifty states pertaining to library thefts or other criminal acts involving library and archival materials (view index). Following are the relevant laws for the state of North Carolina:
North Carolina Statutes Chapter 14 Criminal Law; §14-398 Theft or destruction of property of public libraries, museums, etc.
Any person who shall steal or unlawfully take or detain, or willfully or maliciously or wantonly write upon, cut, tear, deface, disfigure, soil, obliterate, break or destroy, or who shall sell or buy or receive, knowing the same to have been stolen, any book, document, newspaper, periodical, map, chart, picture, portrait, engraving, statue, coin, medal, apparatus, specimen, or other work of literature or object of art or curiosity deposited in a public library, gallery, museum, collection, fair or exhibition, or in any department or office of State or local government, or in a library, gallery, museum, collection, or exhibition, belonging to any incorporated college or university, or any incorporated institution devoted to educational, scientific, literary, artistic, historical or charitable purposes, shall, if the value of the property stolen, detained, sold, bought or received knowing same to have been stolen, or if the damage done by writing upon, cutting, tearing, defacing, disfiguring, soiling, obliterating, breaking or destroying any such property, shall not exceed fifty dollars ($50.00), be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. If the value of the property stolen, detained, sold or received knowing same to have been stolen, or the amount of damage done in any of the ways or manners herein above set out, shall exceed the sum of fifty dollars ($50.00), the person committing same shall be punished as a Class H felon.
North Carolina Statutes Chapter 125 Libraries; §125-11. Failure to return books
Any person who shall fail to return any book, periodical, or other material withdrawn by him from the Library shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor if he shall fail to return the borrowed material within 30 days after receiving a notice from the State Librarian that the material is overdue. The provisions of this section shall not be in effect unless a copy of this section is attached to the overdue notice by the State Librarian.
See North Carolina statutes online at: http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/statutes/statutestoc.pl.
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