The study of criminal behavior in both the individual and within a given society.
Questions tagged [criminology]
205 questions
60
votes
2 answers
Did Abner Schoenwetter spend 6.5 years in jail because he used plastic bags instead of cardboard boxes when importing lobsters from Honduras?
Forbes states that:
Abner Schoenwetter was importing seafood to sell to U.S. restaurants for over 12 years from Honduras. Those shipments were overseen by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who inspected the shipments and found everything…
CuriousIndeed
- 1,825
- 2
- 15
- 19
58
votes
4 answers
Has Trump's administration been making more human trafficking arrests than the Obama administration?
I come across this image below circulation on the internet.
The image is comparing the human trafficking arrests during Trump's and Obama's administrations. Are these figures true?
Grasper
- 3,315
- 2
- 22
- 34
55
votes
3 answers
Was a 15-year-old teen sentenced to 15 years because he took 5 seconds to stop intercourse with an 18-year-old?
This story has been floating around in image form. Is it as ludicrous as it is presented, or are there nuanced facts being left out? Did it even happen?
The 18-year-old woman (“J.L.”) had sex in her car in a parking lot with a 15-year-old boy* whom…
Anon
- 1,063
- 1
- 8
- 16
54
votes
2 answers
Was a Canadian father jailed for referring to his trans son as his daughter?
A recent PostMilennial article claims:
After the hearing, Hoogland gave an interview to The Federalist saying that people cannot change sex, and that mega-doses of exogenous testosterone would damage his vulnerable, biological female child's…
HanMah
- 657
- 1
- 4
- 5
51
votes
2 answers
There isn't "a single case - not one - in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.”
While reading about recent evidence that casts strong doubt on whether Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004, was actually guilty I ran across the following statement in the Washington Post, quoting Supreme Court Justice Antonin…
Mad Scientist
- 43,643
- 20
- 173
- 192
51
votes
2 answers
Has a programmer ever embezzled money by shaving fractions of a cent from many bank transactions?
There's a popular story that describes a programmer having altered a program at a bank so it diverted fractions of a cent from every transaction to another account (or some variation like multiple accounts) so he could collect it later.
The story…
Bart Silverstrim
- 993
- 3
- 9
- 11
49
votes
2 answers
Is there a high chance of being raped in US prisons?
If there is anything one takes away about US prisons from television and movies, it is that there is a really high chance of you getting raped in the shower or in some other dark place.
Now, I don't know that much about US prisons, but it always…
Lagerbaer
- 12,311
- 2
- 68
- 81
49
votes
2 answers
Do atheists commit far fewer crimes?
According to a post by latimes.com, "How secular family values stack up":
Atheists were almost absent from our prison population as of the late 1990s, comprising less than half of 1% of those behind bars, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons…
Brian M. Hunt
- 17,999
- 13
- 99
- 176
49
votes
1 answer
Do murderers tend to return to the scene of the crime?
It is commonly heard that murderers (or other criminals) "always return to the scene of the crime".
Well, that's certainly false for all murderers. However, it is suggested that murderers do have a tendency to return to the scene of the crime.
Do a…
Saturn
- 741
- 2
- 7
- 15
46
votes
4 answers
Can anything remove fingerprints from your fingers?
Here's where it gets interesting; I don't mean erase them from an object, I mean from your fingers directly. Some people claim there is a way to do it, some people claim it's impossible.
I have a friend (no, really, she exists, I swear) who is…
Monkey Tuesday
- 24,456
- 19
- 109
- 136
43
votes
3 answers
Do the murder statistics of 5 cities bring the USA to the 3rd highest country, from 189th?
I'd like to know if the claims about murders are accurate.
The "3rd in murders" is clearly referring to absolute deaths by murder, as it can be seen here, USA holds the 96th position for rate of intentional homicide.
So if the murders from these…
user2638180
- 2,396
- 3
- 17
- 27
41
votes
2 answers
Is the increasing availability of high speed internet pornography reducing sex crime rates?
Some early studies show that the availability of pornography does not increase the rate of sex crimes.
Research on pornography has generally been of various types (Tovar, Elias, & Chang, 1999). Probably most common are studies that involve…
Jeff Atwood
- 1,289
- 4
- 24
- 27
40
votes
1 answer
Does banning fictional portrayal of child abuse reduce actual child abuse?
The United Kingdom's Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (part 2, chapter 2) makes possession of images portraying fictional child abuse punishable by law. Wikipedia has a summary, but here's a snip from the primary-source legalese:
(5) “Child”, subject…
Anko - inactive in protest
- 1,991
- 2
- 18
- 29
39
votes
2 answers
Did Wild West outlaws regularly wear face masks?
An article ("Westerners used to wear masks" by Andrew Gulliford, June 13, 2020) in The Journal of Cortez, Colorado, claims that it was a regular practice of bandits in the "Wild West" to wear facemasks while committing robberies. It claims:
Because…
Robert Columbia
- 3,396
- 3
- 20
- 43
39
votes
3 answers
Are 1 in 5 college women raped?
In this article, it is claimed that 1 in 5 college women are raped (at least around the 2013-2014 time period). I have heard the claim repeated from other sources (such as the BBC, which was apparently quoting a White House figure), so to say the…
user19074