EXTORTION. - In modern criminal law, this is the name given to the crime of a person who, by means of violence or threat, compelling someone to do or to omit something, procures for himself or for others an unjust profit to the detriment of another.
It is distinguished from robbery, in which the violence or threat is used as a means of taking possession of another's property by removing it from the person who holds it; that is, in robbery it is the culprit who takes the thing, whereas in extortion, when there is a transfer of the thing from the victim to the culprit, it is the victim who hands it over to the culprit (at least this is the distinguishing criterion that seems most acceptable). It is distinguished from fraud, because in fraud the means consists, rather than in violence or threat, in inducing error (even if such inducement has the purpose of instilling in the victim the fear of an imaginary danger). On the other hand, a subspecies of extortion is kidnapping for ransom, which occurs when someone abducts a person for the purpose of obtaining, for himself or for others, an unjust profit as the price of liberation.
In current Italian law extortion is punished with imprisonment from three to ten years and with a fine from 40,000 to 160,000 lire; the penalty is increased by one third to one half if the violence or threat is carried out with weapons, or by a disguised person, or by several persons gathered together, or if the violence consists in placing someone in a state of incapacity to will or to act (art. 629 of the Penal Code and lieutenant-general legislative decree 21 Oct. 1947 no. 1250). Kidnapping for ransom is punished with imprisonment from eight to fifteen years, and with a fine from 80,000 to 160,000 lire; but the penalty of imprisonment is from twelve to eighteen years if the culprit achieves his aim (art. 630 of the Penal Code and the cited decree).
In part, also an aggravated extortion is concussion, which is the act of a public official who, abusing his position or his functions, compels or induces someone to give or to promise unduly, to him or to a third party, money or other utility (it cannot be considered aggravated extortion when there is no compulsion but only inducement, and when the effect consists in the obtaining or the promise of a non-economic utility): in the Italian penal code concussion is punished with imprisonment from four to twelve years, with a fine from 24,000 to 400,000 lire, and with interdiction (normally perpetual) from public offices (art. 317 and the cited decree).
In canon law and in moral theology the crimes and sins of which we have spoken here are not specifically provided for, but fall, according to the case, within the more generic criminal categories of robbery, theft, grave violence, enumerated in can. 2354 of the CIC: the penalty for the laity is exclusion (latae sententiae) from legitimate ecclesiastical acts and from any ecclesiastical office; for clerics, according to the gravity of the act, penances, censures, deprivation of office, of benefice or of dignity, and, if the case requires, even deposition are applicable. A particular case of concussion is then provided for in can. 2408, according to which whoever demands stole fees (v. STOLA, DIRITTI di) or other ecclesiastical taxes in an amount greater than that established must be punished with a grave fine, and, in case of recidivism, with suspension from office or with removal from it.
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