The study of criminal behavior in both the individual and within a given society.
Questions tagged [criminology]
205 questions
38
votes
5 answers
Has anyone innocent ever been arrested because of contraband that was planted in their luggage?
There is a question on travel.SE asking what to do if some culprit planted contraband in your luggage. There are some links provided to cases where this is suspected to have happened.
Being able to wrap your luggage at many airports suggests that…
Andra
- 1,013
- 1
- 8
- 15
37
votes
3 answers
Can acts of IP piracy be more beneficial than harmful?
There are several claims that piracy of Intellectual Property (IP) can help sales more than it hurts them.
For example, Edmund McMillan of Team Meat states in an interview at IGN:
McMillen believes that the more people who steal his games, the…
Sonny Ordell
- 8,695
- 4
- 64
- 102
35
votes
1 answer
In the USA, are there more African American men in prison than in college?
I read in a book that "as the next millennium begins, there are more young black men in prison than in college." Jury Nullification by Clay S Conrad (Kindle edition, Dec 2013 loc: 343). (First Published 1998)
Thinking "That's awful and really?" I…
Paul
- 5,380
- 1
- 41
- 75
34
votes
2 answers
Do rapists think rape is normal?
I have found the following statement on an article of feminism:
Do you know who think all men are rapists? Rapists do. They really do. In psychological study, the profiling, the studies, it comes out again and again.
Do studies support that a…
Oddthinking
- 140,378
- 46
- 548
- 638
34
votes
1 answer
Are atheists strongly underrepresented in US prison communities?
This popularly referenced survey gives statistics about the number of atheists in US prisons.
It suggests just 0.21% of the prison population is atheist. There are more scientologists! This is surprising because atheists represent about 15% of the…
Thomas O
- 11,908
- 7
- 53
- 72
34
votes
1 answer
Was the wild west less violent than the current west?
Matt Ridley's The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge has a chapter on the evolution of government, in which he starts by making the startling statement:
The truth is that the [American] Wild West was without much government, but it was…
matt_black
- 56,186
- 16
- 175
- 373
33
votes
1 answer
Does the death penalty in California cost more than $300m per execution?
In the talk show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, John Oliver was arguing against the death penalty and showed the following image claiming that the death penalty cost more than $300m per execution in California:
Costs of capital punishment in…
George Chalhoub
- 30,246
- 14
- 129
- 136
32
votes
1 answer
Are there 2-3m illegal migrants with criminal records in the USA?
President-Elect Trump has said that he plans to deport or jail between 2 million and 3 million illegal migrants in the USA who have criminal records.
US President-elect Donald Trump has said he will deport or jail up to three million illegal…
A E
- 7,319
- 6
- 30
- 50
32
votes
1 answer
Are African Americans victims of a disproportionate number of police killings?
Many people are currently arguing that African Americans are being killed by police disproportionately to their percentage of the US population.
An example of the claim is given at Mapping Police Violence:
Unarmed black people were killed at 5x the…
dsollen
- 10,062
- 12
- 43
- 71
32
votes
1 answer
Did any satanic cult ever commit organised ritual murders or sacrifices?
In Manhattan Beach, CA in 1983 members of the McMartin family were accused of a variety of abuse charges against the children in their care.
It was reported that the children:
"were victimized by teachers who were members of…
Monkey Tuesday
- 24,456
- 19
- 109
- 136
31
votes
1 answer
Are more crimes committed during a full moon?
It is a common belief that more crime is committed during a full moon.
I rationalised this by assuming
criminals used the increased moon
light to aid them in their criminal
activities with out really thinking
about it.
Are there any studies that…
Richard Stelling
- 5,694
- 8
- 48
- 93
30
votes
1 answer
Do car alarms provide a significant reduction in automobile theft?
Noise
That movie got me thinking, because it makes a number of claims about car alarms that jive with my personal feelings about them. They're noisy, obnoxious, tend to go off at night, and are almost universally ignored by passersby, people in…
John Rhoades
- 2,156
- 2
- 22
- 31
29
votes
1 answer
Are there between 100,000-300,000 child sex slaves in the United States today?
Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore state this as part of the "Real Men Don't Buy Girls" campaign.
CNN -
There's between 100,000 and 300,000 child sex slaves in the United States today," Ashton Kutcher tells CNN's Piers Morgan. "If you don't do something…
user1873
- 8,931
- 42
- 81
29
votes
2 answers
Have more U.S. senators been arrested for sexual misconduct in bathrooms than trans women?
I just saw this in my Facebook feed, and now I'm curious if it's actually true. Do they actually keep records of this? It seems improbable, just because there are so many more trans women than senators, but it would be funny if true.
What trans…
Brendan Long
- 1,549
- 16
- 19
29
votes
2 answers
Did the legalisation of abortion result in lower crime rates?
In the book Freakanomics, the author speculated that due to the legalization of abortion in the US, crime rates fell because the people that would normally go out and commit these crimes, well they were never born in the first place.
Aside from the…
Samuelson
- 3,781
- 2
- 29
- 44