§ 11-44-15 — § 11-44-15. Injuring or destroying books and other property of libraries, archives, or other records repositories.

§ 11-44-15. Injuring or destroying books and other property of libraries, archives, or other records repositories.

(a) Any person who willfully, maliciously, or wantonly writes upon, injures, defaces, tears, cuts, mutilates, or destroys any book, record, or other property belonging to or in the custody of any public county or regional library, the state library, the state archives, the state records center or other repository of public records, museum, or any library or collection belonging to or in the custody of any educational, eleemosynary, benevolent, hereditary, or historical library, or patriotic institution, organization, or society, or state or local agency, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be ordered to make restitution in the full retail value of the books, records or other property, and may be fined not more than one hundred dollars ($100), to be for use of the library, archives, or records repository.

(b) "Book, records, or other property� as used in this section includes any book, plate, picture, photograph, engraving, painting, drawing, map, newspaper, magazine, pamphlet, broadside, manuscript, document, letter, public record, equipment, microform, sound recording, audiovisual materials in any format, magnetic or other tapes, electronic data processing records, artifacts, or other documentary, written, or printed material, regardless of physical form or characteristics, belonging to, on loan to, or otherwise in the custody of, any library, museum, archives, or repository of public or other records institution.

Legislative History

G.L. 1896, ch. 279, § 52; P.L. 1907, ch. 1463, § 1; G.L. 1909, ch. 345, § 55; G.L. 1923, ch. 397, § 55; G.L. 1938, ch. 608, § 63; G.L. 1956, § 11-44-15; P.L. 1983, ch. 296, §§ 3, 4; P.L. 1985, ch. 436, § 2; P.L. 1989, ch. 499, § 1.