Sabotage is criminalized at 18 U.S.C. § 2151 et seq., which includes several different forms of this offense. Many states have similar provisions. 1 In general, sabotage is destroying, damaging, or defectively producing (criminal act and harm) property with the specific intent or purposely, general intent or knowingly, or negligently to impede the nation’s ability to prepare for or participate in war and national defense and is detailed in the following United States Codes:
- 18 U.S.C. § 2152 focuses on destroying or damaging harbor-defense property.
- 18 U.S.C. § 2153 focuses on destroying or damaging war material, premises, or utilities.
- 18 U.S.C. § 2154 focuses on producing defective war materials, premises, or utilities.
- 18 U.S.C. § 2155 focuses on destroying or damaging national defense material, premises, or utilities.
- 18 U.S.C. § 2156 focuses on producing defective national defense material, premises, or utilities.
Both 18 U.S.C. §§ 2153 and 2154 have the attendant circumstance that the conduct occur during waror a national emergency. All the sabotage statutes grade sabotage as a felony, with sentences ranging from five to thirty years’ incarceration in federal prison.
Sabotage is prosecuted more often than treason and sedition, and there have been some extremely interesting criminal sabotage cases, including sabotage indictments against a corporation manufacturing defective raincoats for the armed forces during wartime, asabotage trial for the burning of an ROTC building on the Washington University campus after the Kent State University riots, a sabotage trial for defendants who stole copper wire from a railroad track that was used to ship war materials, and the sabotage indictment of Osama bin Laden for extraterritorial (outside the United States) activity.
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