Questions tagged [criminology]
The study of criminal behavior in both the individual and within a given society.
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Did Jeffrey Epstein take his own life?
IN 2019, Barbara Sampson, the New York City's Chief Medical Examiner, ruled that Jeffrey Epstein's death was a suicide by hanging.
New York City’s medical examiner ruled Jeffrey Epstein’s death a ...
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Have phone scammers recorded "Yes" statements to fraudulently authorise payments?
A number of sources claimed that phone scammers would trick people into saying "Yes" on the phone, record it, and use that to fraudulently authorise payments.
Here is a January 2017 Fortune ...
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Are children born out of wedlock more likely to become "predators"?
According to Joe Biden (at about 1:11:00 in the Cspan video; see also the transcript; 18 November 1993, emphasis added):
We must take back the streets. It doesn't matter whether or not the person ...
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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 ...
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Did black people commit 18 times more murders per capita than white people in 2021?
The picture below is posted on 4chan.org (a NSFW website) and seems to claim that in 2021, black people committed 18 times more murders per capita than White people?
ages
white male Murderers per 100,...
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Are one in four victims of intimate partner homicides in Australia male?
In the YouTube video The WAR on MEN is total government misinformation, John Cadogan makes the claim that "One in four victims of intimate partner homicide in Australia are male."
He gives a ...
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Did addiction rates and overdose rates skyrocket more in Oregon than in the rest of the US?
I read on Oregon recriminalises drug possession after overdoses rocket that:
The law rolls back an experimental policy [Measure 110] - the most liberal drug measure in the US - that made possession ...
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Are women 8 times more likely to be murdered after being (non-lethally) strangled by their partner?
Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention - makes the claim:
A woman who has suffered a nonfatal strangulation incident with her intimate partner is 750% more likely to be killed by the same ...
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Did black Americans make up 55.9% of known murder offenders in 2019?
The White Nationalist site VDARE claimed in a 2020 blog article:
The FBI has released its national crime stats for 2019. Murder was down 0.2%.
While blacks made up 52.5% of known murder offenders ...
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Was Imran Khan's prosecution on charges of "iddat" ("un-Islamic marriage") the first such case in Pakistan?
The Guardian writes:
A local court in Pakistan has sentenced Imran Khan, the country’s former prime minister, and his wife to seven years each in a case related to their marriage, which it declared “...
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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 ...
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Did the crime rate in Norway drop 31% after Muslims were deported?
A racist meme was posted on Quora in November 2023 claims that Norway deported Muslims and the crime rate dropped by 31%.
Warning: Image below contains an offensive cartoon.
Did Norway deport Muslims?...
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Did a Michigan jewellery store keeper successfully scare off his attackers with a shotgun in 1995?
In an answer to another question, there is a reference to this 2012 Natural News article, which in turn cites this NRA-ILA article, which cites "The Chronicle, Muskegon, MI, 8/23/95":
Plans to slay ...
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Have crime rates climbed in US cities with "rogue" progressive District Attorneys?
In a 2020 article, the Heritage Foundation claims that "rogue prosecutors" (described in the article as prosecutors who are part of the "so-called progressive prosecutor movement") ...
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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 ...
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Is the intentional homicide rate in China extremely low?
I've found some sources that show China has a relatively low intentional homicide rate. For example:
Wikipedia's List of countries by intentional homicide rate cites the UN Office on Drugs and crime ...
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Has there ever been a burglary or assault from someone keeping an old key and using it on new owners?
It's "common knowledge" that you should change keys on move-in. Usually this is suggested to avoid burglary (or for Googlers and more casual conversation, "robbery"). But has ...
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Is the claim that a serial killer is targeting the LGBTQIA+ community in Manchester credible?
Background
There have been claims that a serial killer has been active in Manchester dating back to the late 2000s. They center on the idea that there have been an unusually high number of drownings ...
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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 ...
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Do men with no prior exposure to child pornography go on to harm children once exposed?
UK government advisor John Carr, of the Council on Child Internet Safety, claims in a radio interview:
Mr Carr said there was "no question" that some men who look at child sex abuse images ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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What are the actual current total count and per capita count of interracial rape? [duplicate]
There are many pictures floating over the internet which says Black on White rape is so much more than White on Black rape. How true is this? Is this true even now?
Source: https://bjs.ojp.gov/...
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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 ...
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Did two crisis actors both claim to be the father of the same child killed in the Uvalde, Texas shooting?
A friend-of-a-friend posted a BitChute video on my friend's Facebook wall: Two crisis actor "fathers" share the same daughter in Uvalde, Texas
The description states:
NBC and CNN interview ...
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To what extent does the reported phenomenon of needle spiking in nightclubs and bars exist?
There have been widespread reports in the UK of "needle spiking," where a person, usually a woman, claims to have been jabbed with something in a bar.
This has received increasing attention, ...
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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. [...
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Have about 170 million people been killed in the name of Allah?
In a question recently asked on the Christianity site, namely, Why don’t Christians accept Muhammad as the true prophet?, an answer quoted this article:
“Beware of false prophets who … inwardly are ...
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Does too much artificial lighting result in increased crime and safety problems?
According to a Washington Post article, Nebraska's tourism board is applying for dark sky certification for the Merritt Reservoir State Recreation Area. As part of their application, they are
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Are most US mass shooters Democrats?
Are most mass shooters Democrats? This representative said they are.
'So many people that commit mass murders are Democrats': New York congresswoman sparks outrage during discussion on Florida school ...
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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 ...
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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] ...
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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 ...
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Is poverty the strongest cause of crime? [closed]
TLDR: Is crime the most important cause of crime?
A common claim, as far as I have seen never sourced in any meaningful way, is that poverty constitutes the strongest or in other ways most relevant ...
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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 ...
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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&...
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Do the murder statistics of 5 cities bring the USA to the 3rd highest country, from 189th? [closed]
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 ...
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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 ...
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Is availability of video pornography a main reason of sexual crimes in developing and under-developing countries? [closed]
I think it is easiest to google search for a porn video than any other thing. What I notice is that whenever a sexual criminal is caught and when Police search for his belongings, almost every time ...
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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) ...
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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 ...
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Were senior officals who outran their executioners pardoned in the Ottoman Empire?
According to various sources, in the Ottoman Empire, when a senior official was given a death sentence, he'd race with his executioner. If he were to win the race, the death sentence would be commuted,...
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Is the novel "Sleepers" a true account?
Note: this question contains spoilers about the novel and movie.
Sleepers is a novel about four boys who are sexually abused at a school for boys, and later exact revenge on their tormentors. It was ...
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How prevalent is the use of drugs (other than alcohol) to spike food/drinks?
A few years ago, I worked in nightclub security. During my training course,* the instructor told us that it was common for people to come up and claim that they had been spiked with something, but ...
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Did Vera Renczi (“the Black Widow”), a female serial killer, exist?
Wikipedia describes Vera Renczi (a.k.a. Black Widow or Chatelaine of Berkerekul) as
a Romanian serial killer who allegedly confessed to poisoning 35 individuals including her two husbands, multiple ...
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Were the vast majority of people on the National Sex Offender Registry children when they committed their crime?
In "Planet America extra podcast (PEP)" 25 Sep (At 1 hour 27 minutes) Dr David Smith made the following claim:
"The national sex offender registry is a disaster in all kinds of respects,...
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Are children of incarcerated parents much more likely to become incarcerated?
This 2017 article from the journal of the US's National Institute of Justice states:
One statistic indicates that children of incarcerated parents are, on average, six times more likely to become ...
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Is the chance of solving a murder cut in half if they don't find a lead within the first 48 hours?
For homicide detectives, the clock starts ticking the moment they are called. Their chance of solving a murder is cut in half if they don't get a lead within the first 48 hours.
This was the lead in ...
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Did the 1994 US crime bill "bring down crime"?
In 1994, the US federal government adopted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (signed into law Sept. 13, 1994).
Ben Shapiro, host of the 'Daily Wire' podcast on YouTube, referred to it ...
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Did Russian hackers beat slot machines with an app?
Russian hackers made up to $250,000 per weekend by using an app to tell them when to pull a trigger.
[...] custom app on the operative’s phone; those markers cause the handset to vibrate roughly 0.25 ...
