Endangerment

Endangerment is a category of criminal law offenses characterized by conduct that creates a significant, unjustified risk of harm to others, even in the absence of actual intention or physical injury. Unlike crimes that require a completed result (such as assault or homicide), endangerment offenses are often "prophylactic" or inchoate in nature; they are designed to prevent harm by criminalizing the underlying reckless or negligent conduct that precedes it. Depending on how serious the behavior is, the legal consequences for endangerment can span the full spectrum from minor misdemeanor charges to major felony counts.

Various laws specify several types of endangerment:

• Child endangerment and animal endangerment: placing a child or animal in a potentially harmful situation, either through negligence or misconduct.
• Reckless endangerment: A person commits the crime of reckless endangerment or wanton endangerment if the person recklessly engages in conduct which creates substantial jeopardy of severe corporeal trauma to another person. Reckless conduct is that which exhibits a culpable disregard of foreseeable consequences to others from the act or omission involved. The accused need not intentionally cause resulting harm. The ultimate question is whether, under all of the circumstances, the accused's demeanor was of that heedless nature that made it actually or imminently dangerous to the rights or safety of others.
• Public endangerment is usually applied to crimes which place the public in some form of danger, although that danger can be more or less severe according to the crime. It is punished most frequently in Canada.

In the U.S., endangerment can range from a misdemeanor to a felony. For example, the New York Penal Code §120.20 defines reckless endangerment in the second degree (class A misdemeanor) as conduct that "creates a substantial serious risk of injury to another person", and §120.25 deals with reckless endangerment in the first degree (class D felony), which is conduct that shows a "depraved indifference to human life" and "creates a grave risk of death to another person". In addition, §145.25 codifies reckless endangerment to property as a class B misdemeanor.