The study of criminal behavior in both the individual and within a given society.
Questions tagged [criminology]
205 questions
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Does the extent of illiteracy in children correlate with future criminality?
Neil Gaiman recently made what has been hailed as one of the best commencement speeches ever at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts (reported here, available as a book here).
In it he talks about the value of literacy. As part of his argument he…
matt_black
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Does being abused make someone more likely to be an abuser?
Does being the victim of abuse make someone more likely to commit abuse?
This is sometimes called the "Vampire theory", with the analogy that being bitten turns you into a vampire.
As an example, Ariel Castro blamed his abuse of women on being…
Andrew Grimm
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Is the Bible the most shoplifted book?
Looking at several 'fun facts' pages, the claim of the Bible being the most shoplifted book appears on several of them. Example 1, Example 2, Example 3 Example 4
The Bible, the world's best-selling book, is also the world's most shoplifted book.…
Wertilq
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During the decade of the Clinton ban on semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, did crime not go down?
Source: USA Today, Opposing view: Eliminate 'gun-free zone' regulations
Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, made a claim:
During the decade of the Clinton ban on semiautomatic rifles (the so-called assault weapons) and…
Carlo Alterego
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Are 1 million people a year date raped?
This article claims:
Every year, an estimated 1 million people are date raped, and many of
them are victims of date-rape drugs, potent mixtures that disrupt the
central nervous system.
I suspect the "article" appears to be more advertisement…
Chad
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Can a trained human eye catch microexpressions?
Microexpressions were validated in this question: Do involuntary "microexpressions" betray liars?
But can a human eye (as opposed to a frame by frame analysis of a high-speed video) detect them specifically? or is human sight too slow to detect…
Jesvin Jose
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Do fast jury verdicts favor either the prosecution or the defendant?
Trial watchers occasionally assert fast verdicts are more likely to be guilty ones. The idea has been expressed by small town newspapers and even sports reporters. At the same time, other news organizations and trial blogs assert exactly the…
Christopher
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Did UK police agree to drop sex-offense charges in exchange for an apology?
In the United Kingdom, Community Resolution Orders give the police the powers to deal with minor offences in which the offender pleads guilty and agrees to reparations, without using the court systems to get a formal conviction.
The Daily Mirror…
tuskiomi
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Is it possible to get a reliable match from 'microscopic hair analysis'?
In her 1999 memoir, 'Lucky', Alice Sebold describes being raped and the arrest and conviction of the male perpetrator, which took place in 1981-1982.
Several months after she was raped, a man passed her on the street and made a comment which she…
thelawnet
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Did Turkish people commit 70–80% of the rapes in Cologne around the year 1996?
In an interview by the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger from 2016-12-29, the journalist/feminist Alice Schwarzer said (in German):
Dass vor 20 Jahren 70 bis 80 Prozent aller Vergewaltigungen in Köln von Türken begangen wurden, war der Polizei wohlbekannt.
My…
unor
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Was child porn found in the possession of Michael Jackson?
A recent article in the Daily Mail states:
Michael Jackson was found to have a sizable collection of pornographic material at his Neverland Ranch in 2003 according to police reports cataloging the property following a search of the residence.
Many…
Jacob Blaustein
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Was the average prison sentence of men who kill their female partners 2 to 6 years in 1989?
According to this Jan 12, 2019 article from the Guardian:
The average prison sentence for men who kill their female partners is
two to six years.
Such short sentencing sounds unrealistically short to me. Supposedly it comes from Statistics cited…
Luxspes
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Do Americans in Russia typically get sentenced to nine years in prison for offenses that local Russians typically get only a one year sentence?
Trevor Reed says that is the case, but he only offers a sample of two Americans (himself and Griner). He says that Russians would "usually receive a year, two years maybe" for the same offenses while 9 years, he says, was unheard of "the entire time…
Fizz
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Is the number of "ghost guns" in the US increasing?
The White House and media have recently claimed the following:
Law enforcement officers across the country increasingly find there is no way to trace certain guns they recover from crime scenes. [emphasis mine]
The article also references this…
JacobIRR
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Are more serial killers born in November than in any other month?
There are several internet pages that claim that the number of serial killers born in November is particularly high.
For example, this article lists eleven murderers born in November and quotes a website "UberFacts":
Seventeen serial killers were…
Caelestis117
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