Any action which violates an established law within a given society.
8
votes
1answer
142 views
Do removable faceplates on car stereos deter theft?
Everyone has probably seen a car stereo head unit with a removable face plate; the idea being you can take the faceplate with you to deter theft. The claim is specifically made in this product ...
2
votes
3answers
361 views
Is the bible the most shoplifted book?
Looking at several 'fun facts' pages, the claim of 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 ...
3
votes
0answers
120 views
Does prison work reduce recidivism?
I'm having difficulty finding statistics comparing the recidivism rates of regular prisoners and the ones that worked while serving the sentence. I can't remember where but I've read that "specialists ...
4
votes
1answer
447 views
Does the 'Mafia' still exist in Italy?
Here is a claim that says the mafia still exist in Italy:
Yes, sadly it does, and will ever does. I'm Italian.
and it's not called mob.. or whatever.
there are many clans, in several Italian ...
8
votes
1answer
305 views
Is the immigrant/crime correlation simply explained by lower wealth?
I am often confronted with statistics that show immigrants are much more involved in crime than the native citizens. This seems to be common in Western countries. Here are some examples, however, ...
0
votes
2answers
264 views
Was the USA colonized by criminals?
There are some places on the Internet that claim that The American were (at least at the start) colonized by criminals and unwanted populations:
Answerbag.com:
North America was first colonized ...
5
votes
4answers
4k views
Did Hugo Chávez have a net worth of 2 billion dollars at the time of his death?
I've seen this now numerious times,
Analysts say Leftist leader had 'amassed private fortune of $2 billion' - Dailymail.co.uk
And, that's a pretty sly way to say that "someone said". But, is it ...
1
vote
0answers
123 views
Has a mass murder ever been prevented by a good guy with a firearm? [duplicate]
While the statistical relationship between gun ownership and mass homicides has been discussed on Skeptics.SE, I have not seen any questions or answers on the following claim.
The policy of the ...
17
votes
1answer
1k views
Is kidney theft happening in real life?
From time to time, we heard about spine-chilling stories of kidney theft in various forms. There's some competing views out there, but I don't know which one to believe.
One negative point of view is ...
8
votes
1answer
2k views
Are there 10 time more home invasions in the UK than the USA?
In this interview (0:35 mark) Ann Coulter argues that:
... home invasions are 10 times higher in Britain than they are in this country [US]
Are there any evidence to support this claim?
5
votes
1answer
380 views
During the decade of the Clinton ban on semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, did crime not go down?
Source: Opposing view: Eliminate 'gun-free zone' regulations (USA Today)
Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, made a claim:
During the decade of the Clinton ban on ...
5
votes
0answers
491 views
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 ...
4
votes
1answer
471 views
Can handcuffs be picked with a single hand while handcuffed?
Many movies and series show people wearing handcuffs picking them using a small hidden peace of metal, like a bobby pin, paperclip, broken glasses, tweezers and more.
Can this be done in real life, ...
9
votes
0answers
1k views
Does locking your car doors reduce theft?
Almost everyone I know locks their car doors when they leave their vehicle for an extended time. However, I come from a country town and most people in that country town don't lock their car doors and ...
4
votes
2answers
322 views
Were members of the yakuza amongst the Fukushima 50?
Tomohiko Suzuki, author of the book The Yakuza and the Nuclear Industry, claims that several members of the Fukushima 50, workers who stayed behind to work on the Fukushima dai-ichi nuclear reactor ...
9
votes
1answer
1k views
Is it safer to NOT light your house at night?
At some point, I read a news report that investigators found out it is actually safer not to light your house when you are not there or when asleep. It mentioned that thieves found very dark places ...
18
votes
2answers
1k views
Are heavy metal music listeners more likely to commit crimes?
It has been suggested (particularly in the 1980s) that individuals that listen to heavy metal are more likely to be commit a crime, as shown here and here. Have any studies statistically shown so?
10
votes
0answers
443 views
Do home alarm systems reduce burglaries?
Does installing an alarm system in your home have an effect on the number or results of burglaries?
I am about to buy a house with an alarm system installed, with a siren/flash light on the front ...
10
votes
1answer
569 views
Do “scare kids straight” programmes reduce criminal activity?
It seems obvious to many people that if the consequences of an activity are sufficiently scary people will naturally avoid the activity. If the consequences of criminal activity are frequent death, ...
17
votes
3answers
779 views
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 ...
20
votes
2answers
3k views
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 ...
22
votes
2answers
2k views
Do professional assassins exist?
It's a common trope in movies that certain people, either spies or mercenaries, specialize in assassination. (An apparently well-paying but wearing specialty, since generally the assassins are freshly ...
28
votes
2answers
3k views
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, ...
5
votes
1answer
718 views
Do budget cuts for police forces typically lead to increased crime rates? [closed]
The UK is currently run by a coalition government with the Conservative party being the dominant partner. Their economic plans involve substantial cuts in public spending.
During the Conservative ...
6
votes
2answers
281 views
Do cyber crimes cost $US114b annually?
A study Symantec claims that the global damages from cyber crime were
A study by Symantec Corp, the maker of Norton computer security
software, estimates the cost of global cybercrimes at $114 ...
7
votes
1answer
374 views
Psychological pricing: reducing theft? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
The origin of “99 cents”
On Wikipedia, the article for psychological pricing (ending prices in -99 or similar) gives the following suggestion for why it is ...
8
votes
2answers
2k views
Can you put a gag in someones mouth to prevent them from talking
I don't get this, I see it on crime TV programs a lot, they stuff a cloth in the mouth of someone so they cant scream/shout for help.
I put a sock in my mouth once, it was pretty easy to push it out ...
26
votes
2answers
2k views
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 ...
12
votes
1answer
445 views
Does addressing the issues focused on by the Broken Windows theory have a measurable impact on crime?
These are excerpts from what could be considered the source for the Broken Windows theory (emphasis added):
[A]t the community level, disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind ...
19
votes
2answers
749 views
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 ...
24
votes
2answers
2k views
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 ...
36
votes
2answers
2k views
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 ...
11
votes
0answers
752 views
Can music incite murder?
From a deleted 700 Club interview archived on the internet archive at
http://web.archive.org/web/20000122101421/http://www.cbn.org/the700club/johannamichaelsen.asp
Johanna says you can trace ...
