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Journalism and communication menu, journalism and communication, the true crime genre is popular, but is it ethical.

From podcasts to documentaries to long-running TV shows like “ Dateline ,” the true crime genre entertains and informs through gruesome and heart-wrenching stories.

But the popularity of the genre begs the questions: Why is such a violent topic ingested by so many, and how is this enjoyment affecting psyches and our culture? Eager to find answers, researchers are delving into the psychological motivation for true crime fans, the ways online participants can harm ongoing cases and whether it is wrong to enjoy this content.

One professor at the UO School of Journalism and Communication (SOJC) brings it all to the classroom, teaching students to examine the ethics of consuming true crime stories. Whitney Phillips , assistant professor of digital platforms and ethics, has written and researched extensively on internet trolling, malicious online activity and the ethical implications of popular culture subjects such as the true crime genre. She teaches J-397 Media Ethics with a focus on the cultural and historical impacts of true crime.

“It wasn’t that I set out to create a class about focusing on the harms of true crime,” said Phillips. “It was how do we use true crime to think about these really important ethical issues that everyone in the room is going to have to deal with in a professional capacity.”

Why the true crime genre is popular

Phillips defines true crime as content about violent, nonfictional events that have specific characteristics that make it popular as entertainment. She teaches three reasons why people are drawn to true crime as entertainment:

• Viewers enjoy the mystery element. Novels and movies centered around a mystery have always proved popular, but true crime allows audience members the chance to feel invested in a real mystery unfolding before them.
• Many enjoy watching a case getting solved while feeling that they’ve participated in it from the comfort of their couch.
• Studies of true crime have found that white women are the largest demographic that enjoys the true crime genre. The hypothesis is that because “women, in particular, have anxiety about potential threats,” they turn to true crime to feel better prepared if something violent were to happen to them. One piece of research that Phillips uses in Media Ethics confirms the theory through studies that examine women’s consumption of nonfiction violent media and why it is higher than men's.

Why ethics matter in the true crime genre

Phillips also teaches the ways true crime can be potentially harmful and unethical. For example, often the victims in the stories shared are white and female, likely because the target audience is white women, and they tend to prefer to listen to cases they can insert themselves into. Phillips argues that this creates the idea that there is “only one type of victim” and that they are the only people whose stories are worth paying attention to.

This is then reinforced in news media, with updates and stories about searches for white female victims filling airtime, while stories about marginalized groups like Indigenous women are rarely aired, if at all. This disparity is something Phillips says is a dangerous consequence of the true crime genre because it tells audiences that only one type of victim’s story matters.

“You have a certain kind of victim, a certain kind of story, a certain kind of perspective,” said Phillips. “And that’s the thing that gets repeated over and over. And because it gets repeated, that’s what people are familiar with.”

Phillips adds that many missing white women also don’t fit the criteria for coverage if they are not the “right” type of victim. For example, sex workers who are murdered or missing often are not considered a “good enough story” because the media’s perception is that they aren’t cared about as much as “innocent” white women.

Phillips also finds the idea of commoditizing true crime troubling. Podcasts like “ My Favorite Murder ” or “ Murder with My Husband ” create catchphrases and sell merchandise inspired by their shows and real-life cases. In doing this, they are reducing victims' lives and tragedies to marketable content. This branding of real violence and victims dehumanizes them by turning them into merchandise and memes.

According to Phillips, this casual conversation around true crime and its victims has also fostered the rise of citizen sleuths. These fans frequent online spaces like Reddit or TikTok to discuss ongoing cases and post about their own theories and opinions, which are often not backed up by fact. They can be harmful because they often promote poor leads that distract the investigation.

Even worse, some have named innocent people close to the victim as suspects in a case and sent their online following to harass a person who is still grieving a devastating loss. Phillips says it’s very easy for some people to fall into the trap of thinking it’s just a fun game to play, but they don’t have all the information and aren’t considering the ethical issues.

“My Favorite Murder” and “Murder with My Husband” are popular true crime podcasts discussed in Assistant Professor Whitney Phillips’ class, J-397 Media Ethics, which focuses on the ethical considerations of the true crime genre.

Why a class around the true crime genre matters

So why did Phillips choose such a gritty topic as the focus of the Media Ethics course? She said she wanted to find a topic that would prove beneficial to all budding communication professionals, no matter their individual major, within the tight timeframe of 10 weeks.  She also wanted to highlight three key topics: ethics of amplification, ethics of representation and ethics around the audience. She realized that by centering her class around true crime, she could dive into each of those topics and into how communication professionals should approach human stories, recognizing who is telling the story and whose stories are not being told.

Phillips emphasizes that her class does not declare all true crime to be “bad” or shame those who enjoy the genre. Instead, she sets out to explore the ways true crime can be important in discussing disparities in race and gender while examining how the genre has been made a staple of popular culture.

“True crime isn’t the problem,” Phillips said. “It’s how people approach it, who is telling the story and whose stories are not being told that’s the problem.”

Phillips also uses research on positive and negative sensationalism conducted by fellow SOJC professor and media studies department head Gretchen Soderlund to further explore these topics in her classroom while teaching students how to remain ethical as communications professionals.

Phillips stresses the importance of reflecting on the stories one consumes with an ethical lens, recognizing whose stories are being told the most and remembering that behind the memes and commoditization, there are still human victims and grieving families at the heart of every true crime case.

Students interested in learning more about the ethics around the true crime genre can check UO’s class schedule and search under Journalism for J-397 Media Ethics.

While this class is open to all majors, media studies is one of four SOJC majors. Visit the media studies page to learn more about the program .

—By Jillian Gray, class of ’25

Jillian Gray is majoring in public relations with a minor in digital humanities. She works as an intern for the SOJC Communication Office’s social media and editorial team. To connect with Gray, visit her LinkedIn profile .

Our Long-standing Obsession with True Crime

Until quite recently, when someone who actually knew what he or she was talking about took the trouble to correct it, the Wikipedia entry for “True Crime” claimed that the genre originated in 1966 with the publication of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.” This all-too-common misconception gets the starting date wrong by roughly 400 years.

No sooner had Gutenberg invented movable type than enterprising printers began churning out graphically violent murder ballads. Whenever a particularly ghastly killing occurred, it was promptly cast in doggerel, printed on a large sheet of paper known as a “broadside,” and peddled to the hard-working masses eager to brighten their dreary days with a little vicarious sadism. Throat-slittings, stranglings, bludgeonings and axe-murders were among the many grisly subjects of these crudely written verses, though few atrocities could match the morbid titillation of a really gruesome child-killing, as in the case of the British “monster mom” Emma Pitt:

                   This Emma Pitt was a schoolmistress,

                      Her child she killed we see,

                   Oh mothers, did you ever hear

                      Of such barbarity?

                   With a large flint stone she beat its head,

                      When such cruelty she’d done,

                   From the tender roof of the infant’s mouth

                      She cut away its tongue.

Murder ballads weren’t the only kind of crime literature available in the old days. In England, true crime books can be traced as far back as John Reynolds’ “The Triumphs of God’s Revenge Against the Crying and Execrable Sin of Murther,” an Elizabethan anthology that dished up juicy real-life stories of homicidal violence under the moralistic pretext of demonstrating that Crime Does Not Pay. Even more popular was “The Newgate Calendar: Or, Malefactors’ Bloody Register,” a constantly updated compendium of sordid true crime accounts, which, after the Bible and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” was the most widely read book in Britain for more than a century.

Here in America, the public’s appetite for lurid entertainment was fed by volumes like the “The Record of Crimes in the United States” (a particular favorite of self-confessed true crime junkie, Nathaniel Hawthorne). Throughout the 19th century and into the early 20th, similar compilations were churned out on a regular basis. Perhaps the best known was the 1910 “Celebrated Criminal Cases of America,” by former San Francisco police captain Thomas S. Duke, a collection of criminal case histories covering a wide range of reprobates, from infamous outlaws like Jesse James and the Daltons to Victorian serial killers like Theodore Durrant (aka “The Demon of the Belfry”) and the Chicago “multi-murderer” Dr. H.H. Holmes. Dashiell Hammett was so addicted to Duke’s book that he kept a copy of it on his night table for bedtime reading (as does his surrogate, Sam Spade, in “The Maltese Falcon”).

Though first-rate pieces of American true crime writing appeared throughout the mid-20th century, by such writers as Damon Runyon, Herbert Asbury, Jim Thompson, Dorothy Kilgallen and especially Edmund Pearson (revered by aficionados as the dean of American true crime), a distinct air of disreputability still clung to the genre. Then came “In Cold Blood,” which elevated the book-length true crime narrative to the rarefied heights of serious literature. Unfortunately, its author also set an unfortunate precedent by indulging in the kind of novelistic embellishment (not to say rank fabrication) that has become endemic to the form. People who write true crime, of course, aren’t the only authors of creative nonfiction who have been known to improve on the truth. Given the promise of absolute veracity that is embedded in the very name of the true crime genre, however, I believe such writers have a particular obligation to stick to the facts.

Not that I’ve always done so myself. Early in my writing career, I occasionally allowed myself a bit of what I referred to as “extrapolation” (less euphemistically known as “making stuff up”). My unacknowledged credo (cribbed from the first chapter of Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”) was “It’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.” In my defense, I restricted my fabrications to fairly minor atmospheric details. For example, in my book “Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America’s Most Fiendish Killer,” there’s a scene in which the main character—the wizened cannibal-pedophile Albert Fish (using his pseudonym, Frank Howard)—dines with the family of his future child-victim, Grace Budd. Here’s how I describe the meal:

The men retired to the kitchen, a clean but dingy-looking room illuminated by a single bare bulb that tinged the whitewashed walls a sickly yellow. The long wooden table, covered with a plaid oilcloth, held a big cast-iron pot full of ham hocks and sauerkraut—the leftover remains of the previous night’s dinner. The sharp, briny odor of the cabbage filled the room. Arranged around the pot were platters of pickled beets and boiled carrots, a basket of hard rolls and two ceramic bowls into which Mrs. Budd had transferred Frank Howard’s pot cheese and strawberries.

This lunch really happened, but I took the artistic liberty of inventing the menu. I hasten to say I did some research into the kind of food a working-class family like the Budds might have served a guest for lunch in the late 1920s. Still, I didn’t actually know what they ate; I just wanted to make the moment seem real for the reader.

I no longer permit myself even such minor bits of imaginative re-creation. My field is historic true crime—I’ve written about cases from the Civil War era to the 1950s—and I’ve come to see the genre as a legitimate branch of American historical study. After all, the Leopold and Loeb case tells us as much about the Jazz Age as Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight does, just as the Manson murders shed as much light on the culture of late-1960s America as Woodstock does. To be taken as seriously as history, however, a true crime book must adhere strictly to documented fact. There’s no reason why a book-length narrative about a 19th-century serial murderer shouldn’t be held to the same rigorous standards as, for instance, a biography of Teddy Roosevelt.

My task as a writer, as I see it, is to produce a serious work of historical scholarship (my last few books have included copious endnotes) that stays true to the sensationalistic roots of the genre by providing “murder fanciers” (as Edmund Pearson called true crime lovers) with the primal pleasures they crave. In looking for a suitable subject, I try to find cases that possess some larger social or cultural significance. Shocking murders happen all the time, of course, but few of them have the ingredients to make much of an impression on the public beyond momentary shock. In the early 1920s, for example, a former showgirl named Clara Phillips—“The Tiger Woman,” the tabloids dubbed her—took a claw hammer to the skull of her husband’s mistress and bludgeoned her to death. Her crime provided the public with some fleeting titillation but quickly vanished into permanent obscurity. By contrast, the 1927 “Double Indemnity Murder” perpetrated by Queens housewife Ruth Snyder and her milquetoast lover, Judd Gray, became one of the signature crimes of the Jazz Age. What made it so riveting wasn’t the homicide per se (the victim, Ruth’s husband, Albert, suffered a death no more or less gruesome than the one inflicted on Mr. Phillip’s mistress) but the colorful cast of characters, the deliciously tawdry storyline and—most important of all—the way the crime seemed to crystalize the cultural anxieties of the day: the breakdown of traditional morality, the threatening freedoms embodied by the “New Woman” and so forth.

Of course, there will always be highbrows who cast a contemptuous eye at the true crime genre. In an essay on “In Cold Blood,” Renata Adler deplores both the original book and the 1968 movie for playing to the bloodlust of the audience by using “every technique of cheap fiction” to intensify the emotional impact of the killings. This criticism, however, seems deeply wrongheaded since, on some fundamental level, one purpose of true crime writing is precisely to provide decent law-abiding citizens with primal, sadistic thrills—to satisfy what William James called our “aboriginal capacity for murderous excitement.” The worst specimens of the genre may not rise above the quasi-pornographic level, but the best—like those exquisitely ornamented war clubs, broadswords and flintlocks displayed in museums—are a testimony to something worth celebrating: the human ability to take something rooted in our intrinsically bloodthirsty nature and turn it into craft of a very high order, sometimes even art.

14 Reasons We Love True Crime, According to the Experts

Everywhere you turn these days, it seems like there’s a new—and wildly successful—book, podcast, or show devoted to a crime.

Investigation Discovery , a hit from when it debuted in 2008, continues to be wildly popular (and even throws its own true crime convention , IDCon ). From Serial and Dr. Death to In the Dark and Atlanta Monster , there’s no shortage of true crime podcasts. The genre is so huge that you can even find plenty of gifts for true crime enthusiasts in your life. Plus, Netflix—whose offerings in this arena include The Keepers, Evil Genius , Wild Wild Country , Making a Murderer , The Staircase , and many more—even created a parody true crime series ( American Vandal ). Even Saturday Night Live parodied our true crime obsession in the song “Murder Show.”

It all raises the question: Why are we so obsessed with true crime? Here’s what the experts have to say.

1. Because being obsessed with true crime is normal (to a point).

First things first: There’s nothing weird about being true crime obsessed. “It says that we're normal and we’re healthy,” Dr. Michael Mantell, former chief psychologist of the San Diego Police Department, told NPR in 2009. “I think our interest in crime serves a number of different healthy psychological purposes.” Of course, there are limits: “If all you do is read about crime and ... all you do is talk about it and you have posters of it, and you have newspaper article clippings in your desk drawer, I'd be concerned,” he said. (That said, overconsumption of true crime can have negative consequences, like the perception that crime is worse than it is , or the idea that there’s a serial killer around every corner, which is simply not true: According to the FBI, “Serial murder is a relatively rare event, estimated to comprise less than one percent of all murders committed in any given year.”)

2. Because evil fascinates us ...

The true crime genre gives people a glimpse into the minds of people who have committed what forensic psychologist Dr. Paul G. Mattiuzzi calls “a most fundamental taboo and also, perhaps, a most fundamental human impulse”—murder. “In every case,” he writes, “there is an assessment to be made about the enormity of evil involved.” This fascination with good versus evil, according to Mantell, has existed forever; Dr. Elizabeth Rutha, a licensed clinical psychologist at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, told AHC Health News that our fascination begins when we’re young. Even as kids, we’re drawn to the tension between good and evil, and true crime embodies our fascination with that dynamic.

3. ... And we want to know what makes killers kill.

We want to figure out what drove these people to this extreme act, and what makes them tick, because we’d never actually commit murder. “We want some insight into the psychology of a killer, partly so we can learn how to protect our families and ourselves,” author Caitlin Rother told Hopes & Fears, “but also because we are simply fascinated by aberrant behavior and the many paths that twisted perceptions can take.”

4. Because of the 24/7 news cycle ...

Even if we’ve been fascinated by crime since the beginning of time, we likely have the media to thank for the uptick in the true crime fad. “Since the ‘50s, we have been bombarded … in the media with accounts of crime stories, and it probably came to real fruition in the ‘70s,” Mantell said. “Our fascination with crime is equaled by our fear of crime.” Later, he noted that “The media understands, if it bleeds, it leads. And probably 25 to 30 percent of most television news today [deals] with crime particularly personal crime and murder. Violent predatory crimes against people go to the top of the list.”

5. … And because we can’t look away from a “trainwreck.”

“Serial killers tantalize people much like traffic accidents, train wrecks, or natural disasters,” Scott Bonn, professor of criminology at Drew University and author of Why We Love Serial Killers , wrote at TIME . “The public’s fascination with them can be seen as a specific manifestation of its more general fixation on violence and calamity. In other words, the actions of a serial killer may be horrible to behold but much of the public simply cannot look away due to the spectacle.”

In fact, the perpetrators of these crimes might serve an important societal role, as true crime writer Harold Schechter explained to Hopes & Fears. “That crime is inseparable from civilization—not an aberration but an integral and even necessary component of our lives—is a notion that has been advanced by various thinkers,” including Plato, Sigmund Freud , and Émile Durkheim, he said. “If such theories are valid (and they have much to commend them), then it follows that criminals can only fulfill their social function if the rest of the world knows exactly what outrages they have committed and how they have been punished—which is to say that what the public really needs and wants is to hear the whole shocking story.”

More Articles About True Crime:

6. Because it helps us feel prepared.

According to Megan Boorsma in Elon Law Review [ PDF ], studies of true crime have shown that people tend to focus on threats to their own wellbeing. Others have noted that women in particular seem to love true crime, and psychologists believe it’s because they’re getting tips about how to increase their chances of survival if they find themselves in a dangerous situation.

One study , published in 2010, found that women were more drawn than men to true crime books that contained tips on how to defend against an attacker; that they were more likely to be interested in books that contained information about a killer’s motives than men were; and that they were more likely to select books that had female victims. “Our findings that women were drawn to stories that contained fitness-relevant information make sense in light of research that shows that women fear becoming the victim of a crime more so than do men,” the researchers concluded; “the characteristics that make these books appealing to women are all highly relevant in terms of preventing or surviving a crime.” Amanda Vicary, the study’s lead author, told the Huffington Post that “by learning about murders—who is more likely to be a murderer, how do these crimes happen, who are the victims, etc.—people are also learning about ways to prevent becoming a victim themselves.”

Watching, listening to, or reading about real crimes “could be like a dress rehearsal,” Dr. Sharon Packer, a psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, told DECIDER.

According to crime novelist Megan Abbott, men are four times more likely than women to be victims of homicide—but women make up 70 percent of intimate partner homicide victims. “I’ve come to believe that what draws women to true crime tales is an instinctual understanding that this is the world they live in,” Abbot wrote in the Los Angeles Times . “And these books are where the concerns and challenges of their lives are taken deadly seriously.”

7. Because there might be an evolutionary benefit.

Dr. Marissa Harrison, associate professor of psychology at Penn State Harrisburg, told Hopes & Fears that she believes people are interested in true crime because we’ve evolved to pay attention to things that could harm us so that we can better avoid them. “You would pay attention to, and have interest in, the horrific, because in the ancestral environment, those who ‘tuned in’ to horrible events left more descendants, logically because they were able to escape harmful stimuli,” she said.

In an interview about the Alex Murdaugh trial, psychologist Coltan Scrivner, a research scientist at Aarhus University in Denmark, told TIME , “Humans, broadly, are built to be intrigued by and alert to potentially dangerous situations. We’re curious about threats in our environment. So anytime we get a hint that there might be information about danger out there, the attention mechanisms in our minds sort of kick on and guide us toward that information.”

8. Because we’re glad we’re not the victim.

Psychologists say one of the main reasons we’re obsessed with true crime is because it gives us an opportunity to feel relieved that we’re not the victim. Tamron Hall, host of ID's Deadline: Crime , identified that sense of reprieve at ID's IDCon in 2017. “I think all of you guys watch our shows and say, ‘But for the grace of God, this could happen to me' … This could happen to anyone we know,” she said .

Packer told DECIDER that a big factor in our true crime obsession is something sort of like schadenfreude—getting enjoyment from the trouble experienced by other people. “It’s not necessarily sadistic, but if bad faith had to fall on someone, at least it fell on someone else,” she said. “There’s a sense of relief in finding out that it happened to someone else rather than you.”

9. Because we’re glad we’re not the perpetrator.

On the other hand, watching true crime also provides an opportunity to feel empathy, Mantell said: “It allows us to feel our compassion, not only a compassion for the victim, but sometimes compassions for the perpetrator.”

"We all get angry at people, and many people say ‘I could kill them’ but almost no one does that, thankfully,” Packer said. “But then when you see it on screen, you say, ‘Oh someone had to kill someone, it wasn’t me, thank God.’ [There is] that same sense of relief that whatever kinds of aggression and impulses one has, we didn’t act on them; someone else did.”

10. Because it gives us an adrenaline rush.

“People ... receive a jolt of adrenaline as a reward for witnessing terrible deeds,” Bonn writes. “If you doubt the addictive power of adrenaline, think of the thrill-seeking child who will ride a roller coaster over and over until he or she becomes physically ill. The euphoric effect of true crime on human emotions is similar to that of roller coasters or natural disasters.”

11. Because we’re trying to solve the mystery.

Humans like puzzles, and true crime shows and podcasts get our brains going. “By following an investigation on TV,” Bonn writes, “people can play armchair detective and see if they can figure out ‘whodunit’ before law enforcement authorities catch the actual perpetrator.”

Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University, told Hopes & Fears that “most true crimes on TV and in books are offered as a puzzle that people want to solve.” That puzzle is a challenge for the brain, and figuring it out provides closure.

12. Because we like to be scared … in a controlled way.

“As a source of popular culture entertainment, [true crime] allow[s] us to experience fear and horror in a controlled environment where the threat is exciting but not real,” Bonn writes. “For example, the stories of real-life killers are often for adults what monster movies are for children.” Schechter told the BBC the same thing—that stories about serial killers are “fairytales for grownups. There’s something in our psyche where we have this need to tell stories about being pursued by monsters.”

Our interest in what motivates violent crimes boils down to being afraid, A.J. Marsden, assistant professor of human services and psychology at Beacon College in Leesburg, Florida, told the Huffington Post; true crime allows viewers to “dive into the darker side of humanity, but from the safety of the couch.”

13. Because it can help us process and manage our own fears.

San Francisco-based licensed clinical social worker Rick Nizzardini told psychoanalyst F. Diane Barth in 2021 that “These shows touch on the hallmark elements of trauma: a sense of powerlessness, a shattering of our sense of safety in the world and the violation of attachments to family, friends and community” which “can raise emotions to the surface that often feel dissociated or cut off from processing, but can be helpful for recovery in the right context.” Author Kelly Sue DeConnick compared true crime to Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline, which she said is “a rather frightening book that often terrifies adults but children seem to universally adore. ... He says that kids already know dragons exist; what they crave is assurance that dragons can be defeated.”

14. Because the storytelling is good—and comforting.

Ask Investigation Discovery’s hosts why people love true crime, and most of them will mention one thing: storytelling. “For thousands of years, people have gathered around the fire and said, ‘Tell me a story,’” Lt. Joe Kenda, former detective and host of Homicide Hunter , told Mental Floss in 2017. “If you tell it well, they’ll ask you tell another one. If you can tell a story about real people involved in real things, that draws their interest more than something some Hollywood scriptwriter made up that always has the same components and the same ending.”

Tony Harris, host of Scene of the Crime and Hate in America , echoed Kenda’s sentiment about storytelling, noting that many true crime shows have a definitive ending: “In most of the shows, we button it up.”

Not only that, most true crime shows follow a similar format—which could also play into our obsession.

“In order to see why people are obsessed with true crime, you have to see the bigger metanarrative that nearly all true crime stories share,” Lester Andrist, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, told Hopes & Fears. “In the typical true crime story, it’s easy to identify the good guys and the bad guys, and most importantly, the crimes are always solved. Mysteries have answers, and the justice system—imperfect though it may be—basically works.”

And so, in a weird way, these true crime stories—as horrific as they are—end up being comforting. “While living in a world where there is rapid social, political, economic, and technological change,” Andrist said, “true crime comforts people by assuring them that their long-held ideas about how the world works are still useful.”

A version of this story was published in 2018; it has been updated for 2023.

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101 Crime Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Crime is a prevalent issue in society and has been a topic of interest for many researchers, scholars, and students alike. Writing an essay on crime can be a thought-provoking and engaging task, allowing you to explore various aspects of criminal behavior, law enforcement, and the criminal justice system. To help you get started, here are 101 crime essay topic ideas and examples:

• The impact of social media on crime rates.
• Exploring the rise of cybercrime in the digital age.
• The relationship between poverty and crime.
• Analyzing the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs in reducing recidivism.
• The role of mental illness in criminal behavior.
• Examining the influence of media on public perception of crime.
• The effectiveness of community policing in crime prevention.
• The reasons behind the gender disparity in crime rates.
• The role of genetics in criminal behavior.
• The impact of drugs and substance abuse on crime rates.
• Exploring the connection between domestic violence and crime.
• The effectiveness of the death penalty in deterring crime.
• Analyzing the impact of racial profiling on crime rates.
• The psychological factors that contribute to criminal behavior.
• The relationship between unemployment and crime rates.
• The effectiveness of gun control policies in reducing crime.
• The role of technology in solving and preventing crimes.
• Analyzing the impact of organized crime on society.
• The reasons behind juvenile delinquency and how to address it.
• The relationship between education and crime rates.
• The impact of hate crimes on marginalized communities.
• Exploring the concept of white-collar crime and its consequences.
• The role of criminal profiling in solving crimes.
• The impact of the war on drugs on crime rates.
• Analyzing the connection between poverty and drug-related crimes.
• The role of restorative justice in the criminal justice system.
• The reasons behind the high incarceration rates in the United States.
• Examining the concept of vigilantism and its ethical implications.
• The impact of crime on tourism and local economies.
• The role of the media in shaping public perception of crime.
• Analyzing the causes and consequences of hate crimes.
• The relationship between mental health and criminal behavior.
• The effectiveness of community-based corrections programs.
• Exploring the impact of DNA evidence on solving crimes.
• The reasons behind the phenomenon of serial killers.
• The role of socioeconomic factors in shaping criminal behavior.
• The impact of criminal records on employment opportunities.
• Analyzing the causes of gang violence and potential solutions.
• The relationship between poverty and property crime rates.
• The effectiveness of surveillance technologies in preventing crime.
• The reasons behind the high rates of recidivism among ex-convicts.
• The impact of mandatory minimum sentences on the criminal justice system.
• The role of forensic science in solving crimes.
• Analyzing the causes and consequences of police brutality.
• The relationship between substance abuse and violent crimes.
• The effectiveness of community-based crime prevention programs.
• Exploring the concept of restorative justice and its application.
• The reasons behind the high rates of drug-related crimes in urban areas.
• The impact of human trafficking on global crime rates.
• The role of criminal justice policies in reducing crime rates.
• Analyzing the connection between poverty and juvenile delinquency.
• The effectiveness of rehabilitation versus punishment in the criminal justice system.
• The reasons behind the rise of terrorism in the modern world.
• The impact of drug legalization on crime rates.
• The role of forensic psychology in solving crimes.
• Exploring the causes and consequences of hate speech crimes.
• The relationship between addiction and criminal behavior.
• The effectiveness of drug treatment programs in reducing crime rates.
• The reasons behind the high rates of domestic violence.
• The impact of police discretion on the criminal justice system.
• Analyzing the connection between child abuse and future criminal behavior.
• The role of the media in perpetuating stereotypes about crime.
• The reasons behind the high rates of sexual assault on college campuses.
• The effectiveness of community outreach programs in preventing crime.
• The impact of race and ethnicity on sentencing disparities.
• The relationship between poverty and violent crime rates.
• The role of forensic anthropology in solving crimes.
• Exploring the causes and consequences of human rights violations.
• The reasons behind the high rates of identity theft in the digital era.
• The impact of mandatory drug testing on reducing workplace crime.
• The effectiveness of drug courts in addressing drug-related crimes.
• The role of environmental factors in shaping criminal behavior.
• Analyzing the connection between child neglect and future criminal behavior.
• The reasons behind the high rates of gun violence in the United States.
• The impact of community surveillance programs on crime prevention.
• The relationship between mental health treatment and recidivism rates.
• The role of forensic entomology in solving crimes.
• Exploring the causes and consequences of human smuggling.
• The reasons behind the high rates of cyberbullying and online harassment.
• The impact of restorative justice practices on reducing prison overcrowding.
• The effectiveness of drug education programs in preventing substance abuse.
• The role of social inequality in contributing to criminal behavior.
• Analyzing the connection between child exploitation and future criminal behavior.
• The reasons behind the high rates of hate crimes against LGBTQ+ individuals.
• The impact of community-oriented policing on crime rates.
• The relationship between mental health stigma and access to treatment for offenders.
• The role of forensic odontology in solving crimes.
• Exploring the causes and consequences of human organ trafficking.
• The reasons behind the high rates of cyberstalking and online harassment.
• The impact of restorative justice on the reintegration of ex-convicts into society.
• The effectiveness of education in preventing drug-related crimes.
• The role of social disorganization theory in understanding crime rates.
• Analyzing the connection between child maltreatment and future criminal behavior.
• The reasons behind the high rates of hate crimes against religious minorities.
• The impact of community-based rehabilitation programs on reducing recidivism.
• The relationship between mental health treatment and diversion programs.
• The role of forensic toxicology in solving crimes.
• Exploring the causes and consequences of human trafficking for labor exploitation.
• The reasons behind the high rates of online fraud and identity theft.
• The impact of alternative sentencing programs on reducing prison populations.
• The effectiveness of harm reduction strategies in addressing drug-related crimes.

These crime essay topic ideas provide a broad range of subjects to explore and analyze. Choose a topic that aligns with your interests and research the subject thoroughly to develop a well-informed and compelling essay. Remember to support your arguments with evidence, statistics, and relevant examples to strengthen your essay and provide a comprehensive understanding of the chosen crime topic.

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Why do we love true crime — and is it healthy for us?

Books, TV shows, movies, documentaries and now podcasts about real-life crime have been popular for years, but, as the “Saturday Night Live” skit “ Murder Show ” from earlier this season so cleverly highlighted, it was a guilty pleasure for many — slightly dirty and never discussed. Adweek , however, recently noted that there has been a dramatic increase in interest in the genre over the past 12 months. “Why Did You Kill Me,” “White Boy,” “This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist,” “Murder Among the Mormons” and “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” all “cracked the top 10 most-popular shows” on Netflix, for instance, while Forbes noted that the biographical documentary “The Sons of Sam: A Descent Into Darkness” was briefly the No. 1 show on Netflix when it premiered in May.

Still, some worry that consuming true crime stories is psychologically unhealthy, potentially retraumatizing survivors of violent crimes on the one hand and desensitizing viewers and readers to the real meanings of these behaviors on the other.

Opinion True crime fails when it treats trauma as entertainment. But there's a better way.

As a psychotherapist, I generally assume that something so popular must have some mental health implications. I started asking questions and discovered that many people I know are secret fans of the genre or could connect me to someone who is. I learned that while there can be some sense that you’re watching out of curiosity — like rubbernecking after a car accident — there’s also a lot of psychological “stuff” going on.

For example, Lauren Jacobsen, who has been watching true crime since she was a teenager, told me that it seems odd but she falls asleep better when she is listening to the podcast “My Favorite Murder.” Writer Kelly Sue DeConnick (“Captain Marvel,” “Bitch Planet”) similarly told me that true crime podcasts soothed her “around the start of the Trump administration and then ramped up at the start of the pandemic."

As a psychotherapist, I generally assume that something so popular must have some mental health implications.

Melinda Swahn, on the other hand, said, “These shows are fascinating because they show other real-life humans. They open the door to how others live.”

And a man I spoke with, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “It’s entertainment, which is horrible to say, but it’s also fascinating to see how an investigative journalist can dig beneath the surface and put pieces together to come up with a new answer to a crime that was unsolved or solved incorrectly.”

What could make media about violence feel so calming?

Opinion How 'Murder Among the Mormons' gets away with promoting stereotypes about our faith

A pervasive sense of helplessness, which many people have felt — some for years, some only for the past few months — can be modified or even lifted by seeing someone else speak about their pain and have it recognized.

Kathleen Check, a psychotherapist in Chicago with whom I spoke, said true crime media provided “a particular kind of escapism” during the pandemic. But, she added, “tuning in and following the specifics of a crime also creates a [false] sense being able to ‘see inside’ the mind of a criminal, thus creating a psychological protective barrier: ‘If I know how criminals operate, I can protect myself.’”

True crime may then help us manage our fears about the world.

Rick Nizzardini, a licensed clinical social worker in San Francisco, told me, “These shows touch on the hallmark elements of trauma: a sense of powerlessness, a shattering of our sense of safety in the world and the violation of attachments to family, friends and community.”

He added, “This can raise emotions to the surface that often feel dissociated or cut off from processing, but can be helpful for recovery in the right context.”

True crime may then help us manage our fears about the world. DeConnick's friend Neil Gaiman sent her an early draft of his children’s book "Coraline," which, she told me, “is a rather frightening book that often terrifies adults but children seem to universally adore.”

Opinion HBO's Golden State Killer doc examines what drove both Michelle McNamara and the killer

She added, “He says that kids already know dragons exist; what they crave is assurance that dragons can be defeated.”

Several fans of true crime also told me they feel both blessed and guilty knowing their lives are better than those of the people featured in true crime media.

Knowing your limits and setting boundaries is an important way of managing painful overstimulation.

Perhaps some of that guilt might be alleviated by knowing that studies show some survivors feel like true crime puts a voice to feelings and experiences that are not always widely heard in our society. For example, in a study of domestic violence survivors who listen to true crime podcasts, Kelli S. Boling, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, found that survivors felt they had become part of “a collective identity and a virtual community where their voices are heard, their stories are normalized.”

Still, the disturbing nature of true crime can sometimes also create problems for those who consume it. Nizzardini, the clinical social worker in San Francisco, also told me, “A concern is if a viewer becomes overly triggered without having a support system to discuss and process these feelings, memories or somatic symptoms.”

Those of us in the mental health field know that speaking one’s pain out loud, having one’s voice heard and experiences validated, and seeing others conquer their “dragons” can be soothing and healing. But it is also important to protect oneself from being overwhelmed or overly distressed. And each of the fans with whom I spoke told me there were shows they did not watch because they “hit too close to home” or because they were too disturbing.

Like the women in Boling’s study, audiences can build a sense of community and support by sharing the experience of consuming true crime media. Many of the fans I spoke with bond with a sibling, a friend or even a romantic partner over the programs.

Opinion We want to hear what you THINK. Please submit a letter to the editor.

And because most true crime media focuses on cases that have been solved, seeing the judicial system in action, or as a force for positive change in some cases, can also be empowering. Boling wrote in an email, “True crime podcasts are starting the conversation — often on a national level — and pushing society to make measurable changes to support victims of domestic violence.”

In the end, it seems that, despite the stereotypes about its fans, true crime is about much more than morbid fascination with other people’s pain. If people’s boundaries — including the individuals featured in the shows — are respected and triggering material avoided by those who are consuming, these programs can actually be beneficial to the emotional well-being of individuals, groups and communities.

F. Diane Barth, a licensed clinical social worker, is a psychotherapist in New York City. Her most recent book is " I Know How You Feel: The Joy and Heartbreak of Friendship in Women's Lives " (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018).

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Pop Culture

True crime has never been more popular. but is it ethical.

Ayesha Rascoe

Mia Estrada

NPR's Ayesha Roscoe asks Washington Post reporter Bethonie Butler about the popularity of true crime stories and the ethics of the genre.

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

607 Crime Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

When writing a research paper about criminology or law, you have to consider your topic carefully. Our team came up with 465 titles, along with some crime essay examples to assist you in your assignment.

🏆 Best Crime Topic Ideas & Essay Examples

👍 good crime topics for essays, ✅ simple & easy topics about crime, 💡 most interesting crime topics to write about, 📌 useful crime topics for essays, 📑 interesting crime topics, ❓ crime research questions.

• Infamous Crimes: Laci Peterson’s Murder Even during the war in Iraq, the search for her and the ultimate arrest of Scott Peterson led the news. Her cell phone and purse were still in the house, and a neighbor said she […]
• Youth Crime as a Major Issue in the World The relationships that exist in the families of the youths could facilitate the indulgence in criminal activities for example when the parents are involved in crime, when there is poor parental guidance and supervision, in […]
• Why Does Crime Exist in Society? Philosophically this is the equivalent of saying that without evil one would not recognize good, and while this is evident in the criminal world and the world of law, it only provides some explanation as […]
• Applying Developmental Theories of Crime to Jeffrey Dahmer In the framework of this theory, Dahmer’s obsession with dissecting animals and necrophilic fantasies from a young age are not connected to the other events in his life but are simply manifestations of his latent, […]
• The Effects of Mass Media Glorifying Crime and Criminal Lifestyle Crime has and will dominate popular media, ranging from the traditional police and detective shows/movies to documentaries, and more recently the ‘true crime’ genre or psychological thrillers attempting to tell the story from the perspective […]
• Impact of Crime on Wider Society Therefore, just as some organs in the body can be removed in order to improve the health of a person, the people who cause problems in the society can also be removed so that the […]
• Three Pathways to Crime Identified by Loeber It encompasses an account of an individual’s past in the course of time of problem behavior in a continuing increment of seriousness of problem behavior.
• Technology for Crime Prevention With the modern computer technology and advanced software, criminal justice system has been in a capacity to compile data and store it as well as share its analysis with other agencies both in and out […]
• International Organized Crime: The 14K Triads in Hong Kong Being one of the largest transnational criminal organizations globally, the 14K does not depend on the strict structure, operates according to the principles of secrecy, and it is rather difficult to bring the organization to […]
• Types of Crime Analysis The goals of tactical analysis are to recognize crime trends and to develop the best suited strategies to address them. This is a matter of great concern and the department would inquire more into the […]
• Solving the Issue of Crime As the director of the county juvenile court, the research question related to the problem at hand should state as follows: What are cost effective methods of solving the proliferation of violent street gangs in […]
• Frankston Serial Killer: Background, Crimes, and Motives At the time, the police noted that Denyer was with his girlfriend. The letter claimed that Denyer knows his whereabouts, and that he was planning to break out of prison to kill him.
• Chris Watts and His Murder Crimes Watts pleaded guilty to the killings of his children and wife. Watts concluded the interview by saying he was sorry and repented for his actions after seeking refuge in God.
• Suspect, Crime Scene, and the Victim: Evidence Triangle In every crime investigation, it is mandatory that the evidence gathered be adequate to draw the link between the suspect, crime scene and the victim.
• The Phases of a Crime and Their Importance in Psychological Profiling Attempt and accomplishment, the third and fourth phases of a crime respectively, differ in the sense that an attempt is a failed crime.
• Crimes Against Property, Persons, and Public Order The least in ranking is crimes against public order for they have no serious repercussions to lives and livelihood of the involved people.
• Using the Internet to Solve a Crime The purpose of my research is to highlight some of the uses of the internet in solving crime. The Internet can be used to carry out crime mapping, this is a strategy used by law […]
• Investigating Crimes against Property According to the Uniform Crime Report of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, there are about 9,767,915 cases of property crimes reported in America annually.
• Social Cultural Causes of Crime There is need to highlight the social cultural factors of crime and describe the necessary positive measures to prevent the occurrences of crime.
• The Major Theories of Crime Causation The survival of any civilization hinges on the establishment of laws and codes of conduct and the subsequent obeying of the same by the members of the society.
• White Collar Crime Parties affected by the crime and how it affects them White collar criminals place more emphasis on their personal needs than their organization’s to the point of downplaying the real costs of their actions.
• The Genre of Crime and Gangster Movies The gangster movies always tend to idolize the gangster figures with a relation to the sinister activities that always define crime and the lifestyles of the gangsters.
• Factors Influencing the Commission of Crime Some of the factors that contribute to the decision-making of the offender are based on time constraints, the ability of the information available, agreeing with the offender’s plans as well as the availability of favorable […]
• Relationship Between Crime Rates and Poverty This shows that the strength of the relationship between the crime index and people living below the line of poverty is.427.
• The Theft of a Laptop in Various Crime Scenarios This paper seeks to evaluate different situations that involve the theft of a laptop with the aim of establishing the types of crime they represent and the differences between them.
• Youth Crime in Functionalism and Conflict Theories The analysis will focus on determining factors contributing to youth engagement in criminal acts, examining the types of delinquencies they are likely to commit, and establishing the socio-psychological facets associated with the teenagers in the […]
• The Impact of Social Media on the Rise in Crime For example, Jones cites revenge porn, or the practice of publishing a partner’s intimate contact on social media, as one of the results of social media use.
• Consequences of Committing Crime These factors affect the behavior of an individual and might lead them to criminal activities depending on the effect of the overall combination of the elements mentioned above.
• Crimes and Criminal Tendencies: Cause and Effect The school makes demands of control, discipline, and accountability which are difficult for the low self-control student to meet, and, for this reason, early school leaving is a result of low self-control, not a cause […]
• Aileen Wuornos’ Background and Crimes Aileen Wuornos began her series of murders in 1989. For a short period, she killed seven people, and all of them were men.
• The Influence of Peer Groups on Youth Crime The impact of youth crime on the community is profound, and so is the influence of criminal behavior on the lives of adolescents.
• “The Functions of Crime” by Emile Durkheim In the article “The Functions of Crime”, Emile Durkheim argues clearly that crime should be treated and analyzed as a normal aspect of a given society.
• Anthropological Theory of Crime Criminal law is a division of law that elucidates crimes, describes their nature and defines available punishment for a criminal offense.
• Parental Responsibility for Crimes of Children Parents should be held responsible for the crime of their children because in most cases criminal involvement of children is the result of lack of parental control.
• Youth Crime According to Conflict Theory The second one is that the youth might engage in criminal activities and violence due to misappropriation of resources, lack of jobs, and inadequate strategies to meet their social needs.
• Crime TV: How Is Criminality Represented on Television? The public’s views and comprehension of crime are heavily influenced by television, the internet, and print media, which can spread the message about the exaggerated danger to society.
• Statistics of Crime Costs to the UK Healthcare The statistic is describing the claims by Labour that the NHS uses 500 million a year to treat wounds caused by knife crimes.
• Marxists and Functionalists’ Views on Crime and Deviance Also, the essay seeks to explain why people commit crimes in reference to a social and political transition, poverty, globalization of crime and state bureaucracy in order to evaluate the most effective conceptual approach to […]
• An Epidemic of Knife Crime in the UK In the case of the former, it is evident that social class plays a key role in the emergence of knife crimes across the UK.
• Crimes Against Person Cases of murder falls in the rule of felony murder which is well stipulated by the constitution of any given country and the penalty is administered depending on whether the case was committed in an […]
• Crime: What Modifies the Human Acts? A young man entering medical school has, as proximate and intermediate ends, the passing of his exams, and the advance from the first to the second class; more remote ends are the exams and classes […]
• “Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal” by Adler This includes the extent, nature, control and cause of crime in the society. It focuses on supernaturalism in the definition and address of crime in society.
• Campus Crimes Types and Causes According to the college administrators’ records, crimes in campuses were minimal in the 19th century and in the early 20th century.
• Cybercrime and Cyber-Related Crimes The introduction of computer technology has created room for cyber crimes and cyber related crimes that have caused many people pain and losses to the society.
• The Crimes of Charles Manson, Serial Killer Even though his people did it himself, he was not involved in this, and the organization of a particular group of people is not in itself an immoral act but is prohibited in some places.
• How Biochemical Conditions and Brain Activity are Linked to Crime Studies have shown that areas with high rates of homicide and other forms of violence had a lot of lead in the air.
• Crime Causes in Sociological Theories The former can be characterized as the outcome of the constructive or adverse influence of rewards/ penalties on the individual’s behavior.
• Drug, Crime and Violence This essay offers a brief discussion of how the abuse of illegal drugs is related to both crime and violence. It is prudent to mention that drug and violence have been noted to be closely […]
• Capital Punishment and Deterrence of Crime For the case of murder or crimes that necessitate capital punishment, the incentive to commit murder is directly related to the uncertainties that punishments for the crime will generate.
• Crime in Canada: Causes, Regulation and Legislation There are those activities that are universally accepted to constitute a crime, however, what might be considered the crime in one society is not necessarily applied in a different society; for instance, looking at a […]
• Social Theories of Crime in Explaining Gang Violence This theory incorporates the strain theory as well as the social disorganization it points out that as a result of strain and societal segregation there is a particular culture that establishes for the low income […]
• White Collar Crimes From a Marxist Criminological Perspective Marxist criminologists interpret it in the following way: “…the crimes of the upper class exert a greater economic toll on society than the crimes of the ‘ordinary people’”.
• Andrew Luster’s Crime and Media Attention Henry Luster, a psychiatrist, and Elizabeth Luster, the parents of Andrew Luster. The film concluded with a snapshot of Luster and an appeal for witnesses to his whereabouts to notify authorities.
• Analysis of the Social Context of Crime Therefore, it is vital to reinforce the legal measures against child abuse, including the enhancement of legal repercussions for the perpetrators of the specified type of crime.
• Crime Prevention Strategies and Quality of Life The aim of crime prevention strategies is to create conditions that cut the chances and motivation for crime, transforming the capability of the criminal justice system to handle crimes.
• Social Disorganization and Crime Social disorganization can be conceptualized as the incapability of the community structure to attain the common values of its members and maintain effective social controls, or as the failure and degeneration of social institutions and […]
• The Cause of the Crime Since it takes a lot of time and resources to get involved in crime, it is evident that involvement in crime is entirely due to decision of the person to gain the rewards that are […]
• Crime Analysis Conceptual Study It is the work of crime analysts to assess the basics of a crime and give an analytical product which is used to handle such offenses and assist incarcerate the offenders, and the accomplice.
• Impact of Cyber Crime on Internet Banking The paper evaluates a con article on ‘The impact of cybercrime on e-banking’ [1]. H2: Identity theft will have a negative impact on the adoption of electronic banking.
• Crime and Family Background Correlation The first half of the 20th century saw the crime rate increase moderately in a few areas; mostly in burglaries and muggings, but less in murders and drunkenness.
• Zodiac Movie: Crime, Media Reporting and Ethics The development of the events and the rise of the killer’s popularity began as soon as the reporters of the San Francisco Chronicle received and discovered the letter with threats to American society.
• Crime and Deviance Crime is an act that is against the norm of a society and the registered law of the entire country. A person is usually taken to the court of law where the offence is listened […]
• Crimes and Victimization: Gender Issues Generally, a common way to perceive the dynamic between men and women in the context of crime and deviance underestimates women’s capacity to be self-sufficient and expects to see the predator-prey relationships between the genders.
• Curtis Sliwa’s “The Guardian Angels”: Fighting Crime in New York City Almost at the same time, the number of burglaries and rapes tripled, the number of felony assaults and carjackings doubled, and the number of homicides increased by a thousand per year.
• White Collar Crime Characteristics It is possible to conclude that white collar offenders are usually well off and have certain status in the society. On balance, it is necessary to note that demographic and psychological characteristics of white collar […]
• “Thinking About Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture” by Michael Tonry Tonry’s goals of explaining the main underlying processes of American penal policymaking and the adverse effects of irrational decisions driven by the moral panic and the politicians’ inclination of gaining authority among the potential voters […]
• Actus Reus and Mens Rea Aspects of Crime These facts imply that there are different contexts in the analysis of the case, and trying to find a common ground for the application of men’s rea would be a futile exercise.
• Criminal Investigations: Nature of Crime Investigators The fourth task of crime investigators in crimes against children is that their work should be able to facilitate effective decision-making and disclosures.
• Violent Crimes Controling and Decreasing in the US The display of aggression toward the environment and other individuals does not equalize the dependency between the criminal genes of the parents and their child’s behavior.
• Victims of Crime Act: History and Development The necessary part of the paper is the information about changes to the original policy. The discussion of this act and how necessary it is for the criminal justice system in The United States is […]
• Major Crimes Committed by Women The most common reasons for the top crimes committed by women are the convergence of gender roles, the increase in financial pressures for women in households, and the leniency of the criminal justice system towards […]
• Generalisation of Persons Who Commit Crime The generalisation about the people who commit crime indicates flaws in the processes of thinking and possible outcomes. It appears that the society chooses to pay attention to crime committed by specific groups, such as […]
• Crime Factors & Levels in South Africa vs. Canada Developed and developing countries have different level of crime and crime control from the developing countries. This crime is concentrated in the urban of Ontario, British Columbia and other areas like Quebec.
• CCTV Cameras: Surveillance and the Reduction of Crime The present paper will seek to argue that greater surveillance is not a desirable answer to the problem of crime and that other solutions are required to reduce crime rates in the long term.
• Surveillance as the Answer to the Crime Issue One of the main features of the “surveillance society” is the use of closed-circuit television that allows for detecting and preventing crimes.
• Cyber Crime and Necessity of Cyber Security This is one of the policies that has been proposed to curb cyber crimes and is being debated in the congress.
• The Impact of the Internet on Traditional Crime How the Internet helps the criminals The advancement in the modern computer technologies and the Internet has put radical changes in the concept of information and the mode of exchanging the data.
• Reasons Why Women Are Often the Victims of Violent Crimes Law enforcement, family, and friends often chose not to pay attention to women in violent relationships, which is another cause of the number of crimes related to femicide to increase.
• Official Crime Statistics: ‘Criminal Activity’ Measure The accuracy of victimization surveys, therefore, depends on the honesty of the respondent or the ability of the respondent to have a good memory of the criminal instances.
• Medical Crimes in the Health Industry This is because the industry has such a long bureaucracy that makes the efficient management of the organization very complicated due to the decentralization processes.
• TV Violence, Increasing Crime Levels and Child Aggression Most of the proponents of that theory state that by witnessing a certain behavior in fiction people become more prone to repeating it in real life. One of the powers these advancements have given us […]
• Prostitution as a “Victimless” Crime In an analysis of prostitution as a “victimless” crime, it is primary to maintain that there is an ongoing debate over the classification of the crime into the “victimless” crimes.
• Situational Crime Prevention SCP focuses on deterring crime by increasing the risk and effort in committing a crime. However, they add that the effect of such measures varies based on the location and type of crime targeted.
• Forensic Psychology: Media and Crime Relationship Consequently, it is arguable that exposure to stimuli involving violence such as the one found in a violent video game and some TV programs including cartoons may cause activation of aggressive scripts among children.
• Crime Prevention at the Workplace: Employee Theft Considering that any form of employee theft induces substantial harm to the financial performance of companies, the integration of adequate crime prevention procedures in the corporate security system is of great importance.
• Society’s Response to Crime Impacts on Justice True, the decisions of the court are generally based on nature of the crime, evidence and the manner of the plaintiff and defendant.
• Crime Policies: Broken Windows Theory Massachusetts is one of the communities that have managed to apply this theory to improve security in their streets. One of the key things to note when implementing this theory in such a location is […]
• White Collar Crimes: Bernard Madoff Ponzi Scheme A Ponzi scheme is a white collar crime in which the perpetrator encourages people to invest in a business and promises high dividends within a short period of time.
• Rogue Security Software: Digital Crime Scenario This rogue security software can appear on a website in the form of an advertisement which in most of the time informs that internet user of their win for being a visitor to the website […]
• Organized Crime – John Gotti’s Analyze He argues that the American social structure and its structure of wealth distribution and that dream of achieving the ‘American dream’ all require crime to maintain social stability in the face of structural inequality.
• Noble Cause Corruption – A Crime-Fighting Sub-Culture The term Noble Cause Corruption refers to a crime-fighting sub-culture that involves the law enforcement members being engaged in activities that would otherwise be considered criminal or unethical for the purposes of the greater good […]
• Electronic Crime: Online Predators on Facebook Facebook, as one of the many social network sites, will be addressed in this paper and after looking at the dangers that such sites pose to the contemporary world, a conclusion will be arrived at […]
• Salem Witchcraft Hysteria: Crime Against Women In the “Was the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria a Product of Women’s Search for Power?” Kyle Koehler and Laurie Winn Carlson present the “pro” and “cons” arguments for this claim.
• Prostitution as a Victimless Crime The association in the law and morality in the subject of prostitution is been a wide concern as prostitution can be considered as one of the oldest phenomena of humankind in a way of practicing […]
• Victimless Crimes: Definition and Types Again, the taxpayers are the victims in such a case as they have to contribute to the rehabilitation of the drug users. As such, some of the so-called victimless crimes have identifiable victims.
• La Cosa Nostra Organized Crime Available criminology scholarship demonstrates that La Cosa Nostra, also referred to as the mafia, the mob, the outfit, the office, and the family, was by any standards the most prominent criminal organization in the United […]
• Functionalist Approach to Deviance and Crime This paper looks at the functionalist approach to the explanation of the causes of deviance and crime. Some level of deviance is however healthy as it leads to better adaptation of the society.
• Hate Crimes and Biblical Worldview The first four commandments of the Old Testament are the commandments about the love of God, and the next six are about the love of one’s neighbors.
• Mens Rea and Actus Reus of Crime: A Case Study About a block down the street, it begins to sprinkle and Latisha opens the umbrella and realizes that it is not hers.
• Note-Taking and Crime Scene Photography Concerning the effectiveness of notes, generally, they should contain a high level of detail, and straightforwardness and cover all areas of the crime scene.
• Comparing the Rate of Crime between the US, Japan, and Mexico The discussion will be general and mostly based on the crime index. The table shows the level of crime in the USA, Japan, and Mexico.67.
• Design Theory in “Ornament and Crime” Essay by Loos One of the striking examples of this opinion is the desire to combine the interior and exterior decoration of the building, making them a logical continuation of each other.
• “Legend” Crime Drama Directed by Brian Helgeland Helgeland revives the images of the Kray brothers, Reggie and Ronny that at some point become one of the leading players in the brutal games of the gangster side.
• Hacking as a Crime and Related Theories The move to embrace the novel technology has led to the emergence of a new form of crime and behavior referred to as “hacking”. Today, the term is used to refer to individuals engaged in […]
• Criminology: Application of Crime Theories For an action to amount to crime, there has to be a breach of law followed by the administration of punishment by the state to the accused.
• The Links Between Gender and Crime The present paper aims to examine the links between gender and crime through an analysis of a sexual assault case. Identification of crime patterns is a valuable tool to guide criminologists as it helps them […]
• White-Collar Crime: The Notorious Case of Ford Pinto Additionally, the representatives of this organization argued that the actions of the company should be judged according to the standards of federal law.
• Natural and Legal Crime Conceptual Distinction Natural crime is therefore described as a crime against the fundamental laws of nature as well as personal crimes which could or may sometimes not be against the laws of the land.
• Crime Scene Investigation in Criminal Justice In the process of controlling the crowd and maintaining order with the aid of the police officers, I took some photographs of the surrounding and then approached the main spot of event. I managed to […]
• Investigation Methods: Terrorism and Cyber Crime The question on whether the investigations in these areas of cyber crime and terrorism to remain incident driven or to adopt strategic approach are still is of great concern to the security agencies and the […]
• Transnational Crime and International Policing This further aids the level of operation and success of international policing by creating the need for control on transnational crime.
• International White-Collar Crime Globalization and the harmonization of the European Community, two logical outcomes of the belief in free markets and value theory Adam Smith espoused in The Wealth of Nations, has also eased of movement of humans, […]
• Forensic Serology and Its Key Aspects in Investigating Crimes The discoveries that have been made over the years about the components of blood are now being widely used by the police to ascertain the individual that may be responsible for involvement in a crime.
• Crime Prevention Programs in America In the overwhelming majority of cases, the term “crime” is defined as the violation of the rules, established in the society or as the breach of existing legislation.
• Forensic Science: Examining Crime Evidence For a forensic scientist, it is paramount to be able to perform the three main functions: Gathering evidence finding the evidence from the crime scene that might be relevant to the case, and collecting it […]
• Crime Prevention and Control Effectiveness Another aspect that needs to be acknowledged is that it is impossible to avoid all of the crimes because some individuals will participate in such activities even if it is dangerous and significant risks are […]
• Crime Punishment: Shame Is Worth a Try Kahan, therefore, proposes that the use of shame as punishment is put to trial and if found effective, must be implemented as an alternative to the imprisonment.
• Race, Ethnicity and Crime There are a number of opposing issues concerning racism and disparity that has led to complication in the discussion of the issue of racism in the Criminal Justice System. The larger the differences between the […]
• Concepts and Reasons of Violent Crimes in Modern Society The environment has specifically been pointed out to be influential in the case of corporate affairs whereby the risk of exposure of huge corruption claims may lead to elimination of the whistle blowers.
• Developmental Crime Prevention Developmental crime prevention is a subsystem of special criminological crime prevention, the target of which is the pre-criminal forms of deviant and delinquent behavior of minors.
• Case Study on Tax Crimes: Distributional Implications of Joint Tax Thus, the above action amounted to tax avoidance since the firm failed to pay the full amount of tax to the United States government.
• Rape Theories and Policies to Minimize Crimes The use of sexual assault as a weapon of war in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, with about 500,000 and 60,000 rapes committed respectively, is a monument to the world.
• Petty Crime Offenses: A Case of Mary Lee It is easy for the prosecution, in this case, to request the judge to sentence the defendant due to her criminal behavior.
• Displacement: Crime Prevention It refers to circumstances where crime intervention efforts make the cost of committing an offense greater than the benefits accruing from the crime.
• The Crimes of Charles Manson In reality, based on the ghastly consequences of his actions and “teachings”, he is generally considered a pathological liar, a shrewd manipulator and a man guilty of not only coercing others to murder in his […]
• Classical and Biological Theories of Crime In this theory the criminal is fully aware of the consequences of the crime but chooses to commit it. This is best explained by the classical theory of crime.
• Searching and Recording the Crime Scene Therefore, based on the nature and size of the scene, it is best recommended for the zone and grid search method to be used in the location and collection of evidence.
• Crime Mysteries of Jack the Ripper The criminal came to be called so after someone wrote a letter at the time of the murders, claiming he was the killer.
• The Evolution of Behavioral and Cognitive Development Theories of Crime Behavioral theory is based upon the principles of behavioral psychology and is the basis for behavior modification and change. This theory is founded on the belief that the way in which people organize their thoughts […]
• Crime Laboratories: Accreditation and Certification S, the four major accrediting bodies include the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board, the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation, Forensic Quality Services, and the American Board of Forensic Toxicology, though each body […]
• The First Officer at Crime Scene One should perfectly realize the fact that the crime scene investigation is an extremely important and, at the same time, complex process that determines the success of the whole case and contributes to the improved […]
• Hans Von Hentig’s Approach to Crime In order to discuss the male’s crimes in detail, it is important to focus on the relationship between the suspect and victims from the perspective of Hans von Hentig’s theory.
• Freakonomics: What Attributed to the Sharp Drop In Crime? This article focuses on these reasons that were thought to have led to reduction of the rising crime rates experienced in United States in the 1990s and refutes the claims flaunted by the theorists.
• Organized Crime in Labor and Drug Trade The organized crime groups in the above mentioned countries will also be compared and contrasted with those found in the US.
• The Long Way to Confession in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment The act of confession is one of the central themes in Crime and Punishment, since it is the climax point of the novel signifying crucial changes in Raskolnikov’s mental and physical state.
• To What Extent Are New Technologies and Organized Crime Linked? There are three major issues in the assessment of the crime and technology which will form the basis of our argument in this research paper; the level of information technology that is used by the […]
• Prohibition and the Rise of Organized Crime In the 1920s, the United States was facing worrying rates of crime that called for the intervention of the Congress to avert the situation.
• Extortion in Organized Crime Groups Blackmailing is a standard tool in organized crime, as it relies on one’s ability to threaten with severe consequences for non-compliance.
• Guidelines for Responsible Reporting on Hate Crimes The media is responsible for maintaining a balance between their interests and the needs and rights of crime victims, the public, and defendants.
• Water Pollution as a Crime Against the Environment In particular, water pollution is a widespread crime against the environment, even though it is a severe felony that can result in harm to many people and vast territories.
• The Crime of Attempt: Adequate Punishment In this situation, it is necessary to cooperate with a lawyer to prove the absence of intent to harm or to verify the impossibility of committing a crime.
• Hate Crimes from a Biblical Perspective Therefore, hate crimes include immoral conduct and a risk to the wellbeing of the general populace, and the courts are without a doubt vested with the jurisdiction to decide how the perpetrators of these offenses […]
• Categories of Crime in Current Justice System A stable and effective legal system work is one of the fundamental aspects necessary for the evolution of society. The severity of the crime is determined by the damage done to a person and the […]
• Crime Scene Investigation Techniques Digital GPS evidence refers to the location data that is collected and stored on digital devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, smart watches, and others.
• The Most Effective Crime Reduction Approaches Therefore, the assessment and monitoring of the community must remain a core strategy for a crime analyst to prevent a rise in crime.
• Mental Health of Crime Offenders The research was created with the idea that women have a significant role in promoting global health because of the importance of their health. According to the findings, life skills training programs improved women’s mental […]
• A Theoretical Perspective on Crimes On the one hand, if the core of committing crimes is the moral values or rational decisions of the individual, then re-education seems to be a feasible strategy. Consequently, the concept of re-education is not […]
• Cryptocurrency Crimes in Financial Markets One of the most relevant, and important news in recent times is the trend of cryptocurrency crimes in financial markets. In this case, it is necessary to improve security systems concerning the management, control, storage, […]
• Discussion on the Role of Crime The results of this study can be implemented in the education and training of police officers and lead to a reduction in the number of illegal actions.
• Crime Prevention With Rational Choice Theory In addition, pure RCT may be insufficient for explaining nuances associated with the psychological and social profiles of the offenders. In particular, the traditional RCT faces problems explaining violent crime and irrational risk and reward […]
• Research in Criminal Justice: Crime Solvability Factors In the sphere of criminal justice, inquiry can doubtlessly assist in the formulation of improved and more progressive laws and institutions.
• Terrorism and Transnational Organized Crime as Threats to Homeland Security The US is among the nations that have suffered some of the worst terrorist attacks worldwide and it is also a hub of international criminal activities due to its wealth of resources and powerful economic […]
• Sexual Crimes and Behavioral Problems Treatment The author’s central claim is the need for a comprehensive study of sexual crimes and the identity of a sex offender with mental abnormalities.
• State Crimes: Strategies to Resisting Tortures in Prisons This paper intends to uncover the effective methods of resistance to state crime on the example of torture in prisons. The main argument will be that the specificity of repressive regimes, which are the main […]
• The Relationship Between Wealth Distribution and Crime Rates According to Anser et al, the levels of crime and violence in the community depend on the difference between the risks or costs and potential gains.
• The Community Policing Impact on Juvenile Crime Moreover, the involvement of the police when it comes to community activities and narrowing the gap between law enforcement and youth is also related to criminal activity in the region.
• Police Administration Issue: Crime Victim Rights Moreover, the police administration has not acknowledged that the decision of the hospital does, in fact, protect the victims’ rights, a duty that is to be implemented by law enforcement.
• Sociology Can Be Applied to Offenders and Crimes As a result, such people are likely to be involved in property theft and unlawfully obtain what does not belong to them.
• Crime Problems and Criminal Justice Notably, except for the last one, all listed procedures can be applied to crime issues discussed above and seem practical in preventing law violations.
• Suitability of Electronic Monitoring: Crime Control Perspective
• Low Crime Clearance Rates in the United States
• Crime Control and Prevention Methods
• Transnational Organized Crime in the United States
• Crime Reporting in Irish Media
• Police Corruption: A Crime With Severe Consequences
• Analysis of Crime and Punishment Bill
• Investigating and Reporting White Collar Crimes: The Case of Bernie Madoff
• “Time and Crime: Which Cold-Case Investigations Should Be Reheated?”: Key Ideas
• “Hot Spots of Crime…” Article by Weisburd & White
• Crime of Ricin Using or an Easy Way Out
• Current Trends in Globalization of Crime
• The Crime and Justice Impact on New Media
• Legal Issues Related to Cyber Crime Investigations
• Crime Rates in the United States
• Processing a Physical and Electronic Crime Scene
• Criminalistics: Forensic Science, Crime, and Terrorism
• Crime Trends in the Jurisdiction
• Websites Against Cyber Crimes: Investigating High-Tech Crime
• Crimes, Future Challenges and Issues
• Cultural Criminology: Inside the Crime
• Juvenile Crime and Human Institutions’ Solutions
• Crime of Extortion and Potential Defense
• The United States Uniform Crime Report’s Aims
• Department of Justice Project on Organized Crime
• Illegal Immigration Policies and Violent Crime
• Finding a Crime Series: Murders Committed by John Wayne Gacy
• Review of High Tech Crime Investigation
• Analysis of Crime and Violence Trauma
• Crime Maps of Detroit and Michigan
• Criminologists’ Views on Crime and Justice Issues
• Napoleon Beazley: Analysis of Crime
• Aspects of Sexual Crime Myth
• The Drug Crime Story of the Stickup Kids
• Document Falsification Crime and Response to It
• Criminal Justice & Security: Measuring Crime Statistics
• Overrepresentation of African Americans in Crime Statistics
• Business-Related Crime and Preventive Measures
• Factors Affecting Losses From Property Crime
• Hate Crimes and Implications
• Juvenile Violent Crime and Children Below Poverty
• Increasing Level of Fear of Crime and Its Cause
• Criminological Theories Explaining Overrepresentation of African Americans in Crime Statistics
• Robert Merton’s Strain Theory Explaining Economic Crime Trends
• The Crime Scene Investigation Effect Theory
• Profiled in Life & Death: Crime Victims’ Compensation and Young People of Color
• American Serial Killer Joseph Paul Franklin’s Crimes
• Prison Sentence Alternatives for Drug-Related Crimes
• Juvenile Crime of Lionel Tate: Causes and Effects
• Crime Commitment and Punishment
• The Federal Bureau Investigation Crime Statistics
• White-Collar Crime-Related Data Sources in the US
• Crimes Against Humanity – Genocide
• Ordinary vs. Hate Crime Activities: Key Differences
• Public Perceptions of Racial Crimes
• Rediscovery of Crime Victims
• Public Perceptions of Crime Analysis
• Crime and Violence: Modern Social Classification
• The New Perspective in the Management of Crime and Offenders
• Measuring Crime Within Lynfield Estate
• Restoring the Requirement of Mens Rea for All Crimes
• GIS Comparing to Areas in Baltimore in Comparison to Crime
• Who Are the Two Partners in All Crimes?
• State Report: Crime Rates in Wisconsin
• Sentencing Philosophies in Crime
• Victimless Crimes in the United States of America
• Youth Crime Statistics in the US
• Hate Crimes – Bullying
• The Crimes of Sexual Assault in Canada
• Transnational Organized Crime in Port Security Operations
• Social and Cultural Inequalities Impact On Crime Experience: London
• Prison Reforms for Handling Crime Effectively
• The ‘Street Games’ Athletic Intervention to Reduce Youth Crime
• Conspiracies in Society: Power Elite and State Crimes Against Society Theories
• Asian Hate Crimes in the United States
• Disability Hate Crimes in England and Wales
• Close-Circuit Television: Crime Control vs. Privacy
• Victims and Crime Evaluation
• Hate Crime Problem Overview
• “Adventures in Crime” Book by Amanda Archer
• Managing the Hate Crimes and Preparing Officers
• Adaptations to Anomie. Theories of Crime
• Federal Statutes: White-Collar Crime
• Juvenile Use of Drug and Committing of Crime
• Data-Based Analysis Approach in Preventing Crime at Dallas Police Department
• Researching Hate Crimes in America
• Crimes Against Unborn Children
• Crime in 2020 During COVID-19
• Evidence of a Relationship Between Crime and Economy
• Federal, State, and Local Hate Crime Laws
• The Costs and Benefits of Dealing With Juvenile Crimes in Boot Camps
• Drug Crimes and Merton’s Anomie
• Property Crime in Boston and Detroit
• Main Aspects of Organized Crime Models
• Crime Control Perspective & the Due Process Perspective
• History of Crime Measurement vs. Contemporary Situation
• Sociological Perspectives on Crimes of Power: Enron
• Profiling and Analytical Skills in Crime Detection
• The Difference Between Media Depiction and the Reality of Crime
• The Use of Social Crime Prevention Techniques in the UK
• Lipstick Analysis in Crime Detection
• Effects of Community Policing Upon Fear of Crime
• Homeland Security: Digital Crime and Terrorism Activities
• Problem-Oriented Crime Intervention and Policy Analysis
• Affect of the Organized Crime in Australia
• Crime Challenges in the 21st Century
• Deviance and Deviant Crimes
• Human Consciousness Leading to Hate Crimes
• The Government Solutions of Violent Crimes
• Crime Statistics in United States
• Causes of Committing Crimes
• Anti Money Laundering and Financial Crime
• Sexual Crimes: Criminal Liability
• Crime in Virginia: Nature and Trends
• Insider Trading Crime and Sentencing
• Criminal Street Gangs as Organized Crime Groups
• Developmental Theories and Crime Prevention Programs
• Race and Culture Factors in Crime
• Analysis of Mental Health in Crime
• Isla Vista Mass Murder as a Hate Crime
• The Genetics of Crime: ‘Criminal Gene’
• Crime Prevention Strategies at Walden University
• Louisiana’s Crime Law: Victim Rights
• Crime Prevention, Law Enforcement and Correction Theories
• Applied Crime Prevention in Hollywood 20 Cinema Location
• White-Collar Crime: Importance of Awareness
• Factors Related to Crime and Their Influence
• The Effects of Campus Shootings on Fear of Crime on Campus
• Global Crimes Impact Assessment
• Improving Crime Policy in Canada by Using Criminological Evidence
• Computer Crime in the United Arab Emirates
• Hate Crime Statistics in Los Angeles and New York Metropolitan Areas
• Theories on Crime
• Criminology in Brief: Understanding Crime
• White Collar Crime: Insidious Injuries
• The Wire: A Crime-Drama Television Series
• The Crime of Robbing the Big City Bank
• Social Developmental Crime Prevention Programs
• The Crime Phenomenon: Victimization and Its Theories
• White-Collar Crime: An Overview
• Gender Crime Rates: The Role of Division of Labor
• Organized Crimes: Review
• Types of Crime in Cyberspace
• A Research of the Crime in State Nevada
• Marriage and Crime Reduction: Is There a Relationship?
• Application of CompStat Crime Model in Los Angeles
• Problems Related to Defining and Regulating Crimes in the Home
• Copyright Implications: Crime Punishable by Law
• Crime in America: What We May Learn From Its Causes?
• Reducing Crime Rates by Analyzing Its Causes
• White-Collar Crime Conceptual Study
• How America’s Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic
• Impact of Economic Characteristics on Sex Crimes
• Juvenile Crime Statistics
• Factors Contributing to Gender Disparity in White Collar Crimes
• Comparison Between Organized Crime And Terrorism
• Mental Illness Relationship to Crime
• Models of Organized Crime Executive Summary
• White Collar Crime-Enron Corporation
• The British Crime Survey’s Strengths and Weaknesses
• Houston City Demographics and Crime Profile
• Hate Crime Against the Jewish Community
• Anomie, Crime, and Weakened Social Ties in Social Institutions
• State of Crime in California
• The Highest Crime Rate: Metropolitan County of Jefferson
• Identifying Crime Patterns
• Increasing the Rates of Crimes in Modern World
• Crime Analysis Data Sources
• Corporate Regulation and Crime
• Understanding the Causes of Juvenile Crime
• White-Collar Crime Offenders and Legislation
• Strategic, Tactical, and Administrative Crime Analysis
• Methamphetamine Drug Crime Registration
• Property and Computer Crimes
• Increasing the Severity of Punishments Imposed for Crime
• Crime in the Suites Effects of Power and Privilege
• Causes of Organized Crime Analysis
• Mr. Charles Dempsey Court Case: Cause and Consequences of the Crime
• The Fears of Reporting a Crime: Why Witnesses Do Not Report Crimes
• Neighborhood Watch Programs and Crime Prevention
• Impact of Globalization and Neoliberalism on Crime and Criminal Justice
• Routine Activities Theory of Crime by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson
• Electronic Crime Scene Investigation & Good Practice Guide
• Economy and Crime: The Relationship
• Cyber Crimes: Court – United States vs. Ancheta
• Crime and Delinquency, Eric Smith’s Case
• White-Collar Crimes: Prevention and Fight
• What Is a Crime? Is It Possible to Prevent Crime?
• Asian Crime: Different Cultures, Different Attitudes
• Community Cohesiveness and Incidence of Crime
• Crime Theories: Intimate Partner Violence in the US
• Age-Crime Relationships and Motivations
• Processing the Crime Scene: Tools and Techniques
• The Relationship of Drugs and Crime
• Detrimental Effects of Gender Influenced Crime and Interventions
• The Prevention of Crime and Community Justice
• Use of the Information Technology to Solve Crimes: DNA Tests and Biometrics
• Nature of Crime in the State of Virginia
• Crime and Social Learning Theory Concept
• Cyber Bullying and Positivist Theory of Crime
• The Future of Global Crime: Globalization and Integration
• The Parallel Between Crime and Conflicts in Africa, Asia and Latin America
• Globalization and the Internet: Change of Organized Crime
• War on Crime Influence on Power Shift Among Various Groups
• Trends in Police Recorded Crime in Northern Ireland
• Human Factor in Enabling and Facilitating E-Crimes
• Financial Crime and Employment
• Power Elite: Deviance and Crime Discussion
• The Crime of Sexual Violence Committed by Men
• Screening in Aviation: Prevention of Crime
• Depiction of White-Collar Crime: Toxic Chemicals and Effects of the Pollutions
• History of Crime in America Since the Early 1800s
• US Attorney’s Office Press Release on Birmingham Crimes
• Cyber Technology: Organized Crimes and Law Enforcement
• Crime Myths and Domestic Terrorism
• State or Federal Crime: Texas Kidnapping Study
• Recidivism Rates for Sex Crimes
• Prevention of Sex Offenders From Committing Crimes
• Impacts of the Society’s Response to Crime
• Policing Operations: Application of New Technologies to Combat Crime
• Relationship Between Unemployment and Crimes
• Drugs, Crime, and Violence: Effects of Drug Use on Behavior
• The Three Strikes Law in Countering Crime
• Hate Crimes in the United States: Bias Toward the Victim’s Identity
• The Nature of Crime: Underlying Drivers Making People Criminals
• Theoretical Impact on Sex Crimes Investigations
• Social Pressure and Black Clothing Impact on Crime Judgments
• Personal vs. Collective Responsibility in War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
• Medea’s Justification for Her Crime
• Economic Recession and Crime Rates
• The Self Control Theory of Crime
• Criminal Justice System: Crime Scene Investigation
• Urban Relationship Between Poverty and Crime
• Middle Class and Crime: Historical Analysis of Crime
• Community Policing as a Tool Against Crime
• Does Crime Make Economic Sense?
• Women’s Crime: Gendered Criminology Theory
• Crimes Against the State: Terrorist Attacks and Death Penalty
• Crime Rates in UK: Quantitative Methods
• Social Program for Management of Crimes Against Women
• Do Drug Enforcement Laws Help to Reduce Other Crimes?
• Organized Crime Investigation in Different Countries
• Cutting-Off Hand Keeps Off Crimes in the Country
• Organized Crime in the United States
• China’s Legal System: Crime and Punishment
• NGOs and the Fight Against Crime
• Cyber-Bullying Is a Crime: Discussion
• Crime Punishment: Humane Treatment of Prisoners Today
• Probing Crime Based on Conduct Report
• Criminal Justice for Physically Injured Crime Victims
• Major Theories of Crime Causation
• Does Drug Interdiction Increase or Decrease Drug-Related Crime?
• Hate Crime as a Core Subject of Criminology
• Youth Crime and Punishment
• Policy Recommendations for Controlling Crime
• City Violence, Crimes and Disruption
• Responsibility for the Most Horrific Crimes Issue
• Rape: The Misunderstood Crime
• Sex Crimes and Burglary: Patterns, Benefits, and Risk
• Alcohol and Crime in the U.K., the United States, and Australia
• Crime and Punishment in Texas
• Three Perspective of One Crime
• Financial Cost of Crime to Society
• Crime in High Schools
• Prevention & Control Of Crime
• Crime and Subcultures in the Urban Area
• Crime in Inner City Neighborhoods
• Date Rape Is Not a Crime: Discussion
• Effective Physical Security and Crime Prevention
• Criminology: Drugs, Crime and Control
• Youth Crime. Prejudice: Is It Justified?
• New York City Community Policing and Crime Reduction
• State Corporate Crime and Criminological Inquiry
• “Crimes Against Humanity” by Ward Churchill
• Psychological Theories Explaining Violent Crime
• Granite City Building Inspectors: Service Crime
• Torts and Crimes. Liability for Traffic Accidents
• Crime of Genocide: Justice and Ethical Issues
• White-Collar Crimes and Deferred Prosecution
• The Uniform Crime Statistics Over 5 Years
• Cyber Crime in the U.S. and Nigeria
• Forensic Biology in Crime Scene Investigations
• The Concept of Uniform Crime Reporting Program
• Property Crime and Typologies
• Crime Scene Investigation and Evidence Classification
• Crimes That Teenagers Do Not Commit
• National Crime Victimization Survey and Analysis
• The Crime of Innocence
• Crime Scene Reconstruction
• Computer Crimes: Viewing the Future
• Important Crime Scene Responsibilities
• Computer Forensics and Cyber Crime
• Computer Forensics: Identity Theft
• Computer Crime Investigation Processes and Analyses
• Crime Prevention and Juvenile Delinquency
• Longford: British Biographical Crime Drama Film
• Immigration and Crime Rates in the United States
• Organized Crime in New York and Chicago
• Bernie Madoff Ponzi’s Crime Scheme
• Gender Factors of Crime in Campus
• Conflict & Crime Control vs. Consensus & Due Process Model
• National Missing and Unidentified Persons System
• “Broken Windows” and Situational Crime Prevention Theories
• Problem‐Oriented Policing in Violent Crime Places
• NGO Analysis of Canadian Crime Victim Foundation
• Crime and Criminal Justice News
• Deterrence: Discouraging Offenders from Re-Committing Crimes
• Religion Role in Crime Definition
• Transnational Organized Crime: Counterstrategy
• Serial Killers, Their Crimes, and Stereotypes
• Economics of Organized Crime and Drug Trafficking
• Achieving Total Security in the Community
• International Law: War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
• Crime Theories Differentiating Criminal Behavior
• Comparing Different Indexes of Crimes
• Anomie and Strain Crime Theories
• Crime Theories: Shooting in Northwest Washington
• White-Collar Crime Theories and Their Development
• Robert Courtney’s Crime as Input to Business Regulation
• Three-Strikes Law Ineffective in Crime Reduction
• Violence, Security and Crime Prevention at School
• Electronic Crimes and Federal Guidance in Regulation
• Crimes in Biological, Psychological, Sociological Theories
• Offenders’ Age and Anti-Black Hate Crimes
• The Role of Location in Crime Fiction
• Crimes Against Persons: Theory and Doctrine
• Prohibition as a Cause of Increased Crimes Illegal Activity
• Crime Prevention Approaches
• White-Collar Crimes Causes
• Processing a Crime Scene
• Differences of Crime Perception in North Jersey
• Children as Victims of Crime
• Crime Prevention and Risk Management
• Crime Data: Collection and Analysis Tools
• Crime Rates of Sex Crimes and Firearm Violence
• Hate Crimes in Modern Society
• Organized Crime in the Balkans
• Compliance Impact on Financial Crimes
• Closed-Circuit Television Cameras in Crime Reduction
• Marijuana Crime in California State and Federal Courts
• Digital Crime Causes and Theories
• Pink-Collar Criminal: Gender in White-Collar Crime
• Nanjing Massacre as Japan’s Denied War Crime
• Gender and Crime Correlation in Strain Theory
• Crime Scene Investigation: Principles and Process
• Civic Virtue in Crime Commitment and Revelation
• ”Crime and Justice in the United States” by Bohm & Haley
• Crime Television Series: “Al Fin Cayó!”
• Internet Crime Prevention by Law and E-Business
• Hate Crimes and Anti-Discrimination Laws
• Crime Scene Investigation Stages and Protocols
• Race, Ethnicity and Crime in America
• White Collar Crimes Focus
• Raskolnikov’s Crime in Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”
• Shoe Impression at a Crime Scene
• Crime Causation and Diversion in the Florida State
• Identity Theft Crimes in the United States
• Violent Crimes Classification in the United States
• Abortion as a Crime and the Fight Against It
• Fort Lauderdale’s Law Enforcement and Crime Rates
• Conflict Criminology and Crime Causation Theories
• Cyber Law: Intellectual Property Crimes
• Hate Crimes and the Law Discussion
• Criminological Theories and American Crime Trends
• Classical Criminology and Present Day Crime
• Hughesville’s Environmental Design in Crime Prevention
• Incarceration Rates, Crime Rates, Public Safety
• Law Enforcement’s Response on Hate Crimes
• Hate Crimes: Crimes or Deviant Behavior?
• Insight into Hate Crimes: Who Is the Victim?
• The Historical Investigation – Robert Salmon’s Crime
• Economic Crime & Global Impact: Money Laundering
• The Enron Company’s Ethical Crimes
• American Mafia: Crime Prevention and Prosecution
• Syrian War Crimes and International Criminal Court
• Minorities, Immigrants, and Crime Prejudice
• Victims of Crime Act and Crime Victims Fund
• Cyberspace: Statistics, Policy, and Crimes
• Crimes Classification in American Criminal Law
• The Drug Effect: Health, Crime and Society
• Social Deviance and Crime Organizations
• Nature of Crime in the UAE
• Organ Trade: Legal Position and Crime
• The Debate Over Recent Recorded Crime in Turkey
• Crime as a Sociological Problem
• Technologically-Aided Crime Analysis
• How to Stop Internet Crime?
• Singapore’s Cyber Crime Scene
• Organized Crime in Japan and the US
• Crimes: Identity Theft in America
• Home Depot Company’s E-Commerce Crime Case
• CSI Effect: Crime-Related Shows and Judicial System
• Punitive Versus Therapeutic Crime Management
• Internet Crimes: Cyberstalking
• Assault: Historical Common Law and Current Statute
• Crime Issues: Objectives of Punishment and Sentencing
• Controlling Organized Crime
• Criminology: Prisons Impact on Crime Rates
• Criminal Concepts Differentiation
• Crime in Chicago: Witnesses Go Silent
• Cyber-Crime – New Ways to Steal Identity and Money
• Hate Crime Among Juveniles
• The Extent of Crime in Urban Settings
• Luka Magnotta and His Crime
• Edward Norris Case: Combating Crime in Baltimore
• Education Policy and Crime Reduction: USA/Africa Comparability Study
• Patterns at Crime Scenes
• Effects of Transnational Organized Crime on Foreign Politics
• Transnational Organized Crime
• Criminal Justice System Role in Curbing Crime Rates
• The National Crime Victims Right Movement Media Strategy
• Corporate White Collar Crime Analysis
• Final Program Evaluation: Increasing Police Numbers to Reduce Juvenile Crime in the UAE
• Increase Police Numbers to Reduce UAE’s Juvenile Crime Rate
• Transnational Organized Crime: Prevalence, Factors and Impacts
• Crimes, Homelessness, Mental Disorders
• Analyzing Graffiti as a Crime
• Social Criticism Work in the Scandinavian Crime Fiction Novels
• Transnational Organized Crime Network: Definition and Aspects
• Crime and Victimization in the US
• “Hana-B” a Crime Drama Film by Takeshi Kitano
• Can Genetics Cause Crime?
• Are the Laws Propagating Crime?
• When Was the First True Crime?
• Does Capital Punishment Deter Crime?
• Does Crime and Violence Affect the Tourism Industry?
• Does Drug Use Cause Crime or Does Crime Cause Drug Use?
• Does Marriage Reduce Crime?
• What’s the Origin of Crime?
• Does Social Deprivation Relate to Crime?
• Why People Commit Crime?
• Why Crime Rates Will Drop?
• What Are the Social Causes of Youth Crime?
• What Causes High Crime Rate?
• What Are the Proper Steps in a Crime Investigation?
• What Are the Psychological Causes of Crime?
• What Are the Causes of Youth Crime in the UK?
• What Are the Major Problems with Regard to the Collection of Crime Statistics?
• How Accurate Are Official Crime Statistics?
• What Is the First: Crime or Law?
• How Did American White Collar Crime Transform?
• What Are the Seven Elements of a Crime?
• How Does Globalization Impact on Crime and Victimisation?
• How Can Crime Best Be Measured?
• Why Does Crime Change over Time?
• How Crime and Deviance Can Be Seen as Functional for Society?
• Computer Forensics Essay Topics
• Drug Trafficking Research Topics
• Crime Prevention Research Topics
• Organized Crime Titles
• Crime and Punishment Titles
• Mass Incarceration Essay Topics
• Criminal Procedure Titles
• Cheating Questions
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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What Is True Crime?

These harrowing narratives transport readers to the scene of the crime and seek to give a voice to the lost.

True crime has never been more popular than it is today, as evidenced by the astonishing number of podcasts, TV shows, and documentaries dedicated to the genre. At its core, however, true crime is a type of nonfiction literature. From influential works like Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966) to modern-day investigations such as Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2018) or Elon Green’s Last Call (2021), such narratives are unique in the way they connect with their readers, precisely because they explore harrowing real-life events that could happen to anyone.

Want to know more about true crime? Here we define the genre, take a fascinating look at its origins, and cover some of its common themes.

The Definition of “True Crime”

It seems like the definition of true crime would be obvious: A story about a crime that actually occurred. Indeed, most true crime books explore dark and distressing subject matter, and reader discretion is advised. Granted, the first rule of true crime is that the narrative must include as many nitty-gritty facts about the case as possible: Readers expect the actual names of people involved and the correct time and place, information about what they did, and as many details of the crime and its investigation as the author can dig up.

True crime books can be about a single event, like a kidnapping. They can also be about the collective crimes of serial killers, thieves, or cult leaders. However narrow or broad the focus, the best true crime books deliver well-researched, finely written examinations of the case at hand.

But the wealth of details is just half of what makes true crime so popular with readers. The most talented true crime authors excel at presenting the facts of a case while vividly re-creating the atmosphere that surrounded the crime. They put criminals and their victims in context by establishing elements like the political climate of the day, the history of a town, or the struggles faced by a particular community. They dig into everyone’s motives, then weigh these motives against the actions and developments they document. They re-create dialogue as faithfully as possible, although of course sometimes it’s necessary to take artistic liberties.

In other words, the most popular true crime authors transport readers to the scene of the crime, with all senses fully engaged. Without an author’s narrative talents, the details of the crime would simply read like a legal report.

The Origins of True Crime

Before literacy rates hit a growth spurt late in the Renaissance, sensational crimes of the day were reported in the form of ballads. These songs were often written and performed within days of the event. Ballads like “ The Gosport Tragedy or the Perjured Ship-Carpenter ” (1560s), about a woman murdered by her lover, have been passed down for centuries, with the lyrics modified over time. The ballad “ Pretty Polly ” is the most recent incarnation of “The Gosport Tragedy” and is considered a staple of American folk music.

Some of the earliest true crime writing comes from England in the early 1600s. Town leaders and clergymen reported horrible local crimes to teach a moral lesson about the limits of God’s mercy to the criminally inclined. John Reynolds’ The Triumphs of Gods Revenge Against the Crying & Execrable Sinne of Willful, & Premeditated Murther is one such collection of crime narratives, written between 1621 and 1635 and originally distributed as pamphlets.

Execution sermons are another form of early true crime writing. Preachers delivered these sermons —  popular with Puritans in the New World — prior to the execution of a criminal, focusing on their path to ruin and the ways they could have avoided their fate. These sermons drew large audiences and usually included the person about to be executed. Printed versions of the sermons were sometimes distributed after the execution took place. As these documents evolved, interviews with the condemned were added, often with scandalous confessions. Some of the most common execution sermons in the New World involved women accused of witchcraft, as found in Cotton and Increase Mather’s Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England (1862).

By the 1800s, broadsides, crime pamphlets, and penny dreadfuls offered readers vivid — and often exaggerated — reporting of crimes. They were a sensationalized mix of journalism and storytelling, and they sold well but were certainly not considered literature. Nevertheless, criminal behavior was a popular topic for some of the era’s most respected authors too, with essays by Charles Dickens (“ A Visit to Newgate ,” 1836) and William Thackeray (“ Going to See a Man Hanged ,” 1840) examining humanity’s capacity for violence.

Crime fiction flourished in the 18 th and 19 th centuries, but it was not until 1966 that true crime reached a new level of readership. One book, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, changed both the way authors wrote true crime and the way critics reviewed it. A hybrid “nonfiction novel,” Capote’s book centers on the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas. It explores the investigation of the murders, the subsequent capture of killers Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, and their trial and execution. Capote’s nuanced examination on the killers’ motives reads like any bestselling mystery novel. Since In Cold Blood, a bevy of true crime books, podcasts, and documentaries have followed the narrative-driven template that Capote employed.

Common Types of True Crime

There’s always overlap in the types of true crime books, but contemporary titles tend to fall into at least one of the following categories:

Criminal-centric true crime books put criminals and their motives front and center. In 1979, Norman Mailer won the Pulitzer Prize for  The Executioner’s Song . The true crime novel centers on Gary Gilmore, who was convicted of murder and insisted on his own execution. Ann Rule’s  The Stranger Beside Me (1980) is a shocking account of her friendship with serial killer Ted Bundy.

Victim-centric true crime books focus on the lives of the victims and seek to give a voice to the lost. Elon Green’s  Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York (2021) shines a light on a serial killer who targeted gay men in 1980s and ’90s at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Robert Kolker’s  Lost Girls  (2013) gives a voice to the victims of the still-unidentified Long Island Serial Killer.

Some true crime books focus intensely on the investigation of the crime. Michelle McNamara’s  I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2018) famously tracks the author’s search for the Golden State Killer. The Lazarus Files  (2019) by Matthew McGough tells the story of a cold case investigation that unearths a killer in an unexpected place.

Historical true crime books shed light on notorious crimes of yesteryear, some of which have gone unsolved for generations. Erik Larsen’s The Devil in the White City (2003) tells the story of the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 and the crimes that notorious serial killer H.H. Holmes committed in the shadow of the exposition. Tom Clavin details one of the most notorious Wild West shoot-outs in Tombstone (2020), offering his take on what happened to the survivors. The Kidnap Years (2020) by David Stout reminds us of a heartbreaking kidnapping epidemic during the Great Depression, which included the Lindbergh baby.

Sociopolitical true crime books cover crimes of power and influence like political assassinations, high-profile robberies, or organized crime. Ghost in the Wires (2011) by Kevin Mitnick is a true crime memoir about his life as a hacker on the run from the FBI. Charles Brandt’s I Heard You Paint Houses (2004) centers on the confessions of hitman Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran, including that Sheeran killed Jimmy Hoffa. As for the assassination of JFK, there are too many books to count.

Last but not least, no true crime bookshelf is complete without a bleak look into the lives of the world’s most notorious cults. The Road to Jonestown (2017) by Jeff Guinn includes recent interviews with survivors of Jim Jones’s cult, plus others who knew Jones personally. Multiple books have been written about Charles Manson and his clan of followers, but none are more popular than Vincent Bugliosi’s  Helter Skelter (1974), which stands as the bestselling true crime book of all time (Capote’s In Cold Blood comes in second).

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How to Write Great True Crime

Hint: Branch out from serial killers coming through the window.

True crime is one of the most popular forms of entertainment. The genre grips audiences across mediums, in films and television, and—perhaps in its original form—literature.

Despite an arguably elevated cultural position, literary works can be as formulaic and mass-produced as anything onscreen. In the world of crime writing, that’s often the case. With demand high, creators can churn out whodunnits as fast as consumers can devour them.

Writing in  World Literature Today , mystery novelist J. Madison Davis tackles the subject of what separates the wheat from the chaff in the craft of crime writing. It’s far more than a grisly backstory, he explains; the market is flooded with blood-soaked paperbacks.  “ Judging the Edgar Allan Poe award for ‘best fact crime’ in 1992 was an incredibly depressing experience,” he writes. “Serial killers were popular as subjects, and their stories were monotonously consistent.”

In fact, Davis read so many books that used a similar structure that he produced a basic format in full (to the bemusement of anyone who has ever picked up a discounted crime novel).

The book opens with Joe Sicko sharpening his axe or climbing into the window of the victim’s house. About the time he reaches the top of the stairs, the author ends the chapter (often glorified by the title “Prologue”), suspending the gore and jumping all the way back to when Joe…began his life as a child. He doesn’t stand a chance, given his dysfunctional home. The book then follows the long progress of Joe to become the monster at the top of the stairs. If Joe’s unhappy development becomes too boring, the book may be interrupted with interludes portraying the indomitable avenger who will bring Joe down. After arriving back at the top of the stairs (so to speak), the book then fulfills its promise of carnage and unwinds with the detective work that brings Joe down.

So much for what makes a crime book formulaic. The more pertinent topic Davis discusses is what elevates a work into “the level of lasting literature.” While acknowledging that art is an intensely personal (and therefore subjective) experience, he also highlights that, in judging among hundreds of books submitted for an award annually, “writers of widely divergent backgrounds and locations create…similar lists of finalists,” suggesting a common understanding of what makes great crime writing.

“Writers know good writing, just as musicians know good music, and the elements of this seemingly intangible quality are much more specific than most people think,” Davis explains.

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In Davis’s view, a common misstep is thinking that true crime writing has to be equivalent to journalism: clinging closely to facts and dismissing artistry and interpretation, as though there is a sharp line between “nonfiction” and “fiction.” He points out two examples that reject this notion, to great success: Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood , arguably the germinal work of true crime and simultaneously recognized as a great work of literature, and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song , which won the Pulitzer Prize.

“In the end,” Davis explains, “it isn’t the oddity or excesses of the crime that allow true-crime books to earn the designation of literary excellence. That only comes from the writing.”

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The Enduring, Pernicious Whiteness Of True Crime

White voices and victims dominate the genre, which can skew the perception of what constitutes a crime.

Even beyond the subject matter —a long-unsolved lynching of a Black man in Georgia— Wesley Lowery’s recent story in GQ was jarring. The July feature has the hallmarks of classic true crime: the ambitious investigator, the zealous prosecutor, the family that would not let the case be forgotten. It’s a great story, squarely in the vein of other cold case classics, including Pamela Colloff’s “ Unholy Act ,” Matthew McGough’s “ The Lazarus File ,” and Robert Kolker’s “ A Serial Killer in Common .” And yet it is, in one profound way, extremely unusual. Lowery, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is Black. And the true crime genre is very, very white.

True crime is, relatively speaking, small. None of the Big Five book publishers bothers with a dedicated imprint. But the genre wields outsize cultural sway far beyond publishing, especially since the success of 2014’s “Serial” podcast—about the highly contested homicide conviction of Adnan Syed in the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee in Baltimore County, Maryland—and HBO’s “The Jinx,” the 2015 docuseries about real estate heir Robert Durst and several homicides he is suspected of having committed. (Durst will stand trial for the December 2000 homicide of Susan Berman next year .) So it matters a great deal that most true crime focuses on white police officers and detectives, white victims, and white prosecutors working to avenge them — aimed, said Lowery, “at a presumed white audience.” He believes, rightly, that this is effectively a judgment about what constitutes a sympathetic victim.

I called Lowery not long ago to talk about that whiteness, which swamps the genre across books, magazines, newspapers, and podcasts—and how the color barrier has influenced Americans’ impression of crime itself.

Lowery noted that Samuel Little, perhaps one of the most prolific murderers in American history— he credits himself with 93 victims — remains relatively unknown. Serial killer-related content is extraordinarily popular among Americans; is it not unreasonable, Lowery wonders, to credit this ignorance to Little’s alleged victims — disproportionately Black women? Little’s confessions have been met with skepticism from some in law enforcement and journalism . Lowery said Little remaining under the cultural radar “speaks to the extent to which the subjective decisions that are made about what to portray in true crime is a financial decision, made based on what is presumed a white audience will care about.”

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and has been for many years. The racial disparity is hard to quantify, but it’s surely been evident for the last two decades, before which true crime was regarded as trash. During each of those years, Mystery Writers of America bestowed its Edgar Awards. Among the categories: Best Fact Crime. Five or six books are nominated each year.

In the last 20 years, few nonwhite writers have been nominated in the category, and none have won. (In 2018, the organization rescinded an achievement award to disgraced Central Park Five prosecutor Linda Fairstein.)

Journalist Sarah Weinman’s latest anthology, “ Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession” — in which I have story — features only one nonwhite writer and no Black writers. Weinman is aware that this absence reflects the genre itself. “When pain and trauma is grist for the entertainment mill, certain stories are, still, valued over others,” she wrote in a July essay for BuzzFeed News.

The implications of that value judgment are staggering. Think about what it means to have white writers tell the world about crime that, most often, affects Black people — or that white editors get to choose what crime is worth a book, a feature, a podcast. Think about how this skews some people’s perception of what even constitutes a crime.

It’s hard to overstate how inaccurate and damaging the results and perceptions created by so much whiteness has been. Generations of readers have been led to believe that murder victims most often are women killed by men and that Black serial murderers are rare. Neither assertion is true. According to the FBI , the majority of homicide victims are men killed by other men, and the race of serial murderers is commensurate with the racial makeup of the U.S. as a whole.

The fallout extends beyond misperception into policy, and it has for decades. For example, as Rachel Monroe detailed in her 2019 book “Savage Appetites,” the rise of the victims’ rights movement, led by the mother of Sharon Tate —a white actress whose murder at the hands of Manson Family members has been documented ad nauseam—led directly to the rights of defendants being restricted. The severity of punishment is rarely even questioned. “[True crime] frames the justice system as inherently just, and it frames long prison sentences as something to aspire toward,” says journalist Rachelle Hampton . “It very much sets up a neat line between us —people who are not incarcerated—and them , people who are incarcerated.”

To this day, reporters enable law enforcement to spread misleading statistics—to suggest, with scant evidence, that major cities, including New York, are suffering through an unprecedented rise in crime. That, too, is false .

“We end up misrepresenting what the world actually looks like,” says Lowery.

Or as Jean Murley, author of “ The Rise of True Crime ,” puts it: “Modern true crime is almost a fantasy genre.”

How did this happen? And what, if anything, can we do about it?

Writers of color were excluded from the beginning.

American true crime began at the National Police Gazette, founded in 1845 . Alongside stories about horse races, boxing matches, and community goings-on, were accounts of murder. The magazine was exceedingly popular, and was quickly consumed by 150,000 subscribers . Its success led eventually to True Detective Mysteries , a magazine founded in 1924, and Official Detective Stories, a decade later.

These magazines often contained messages from law enforcement, including the ruthless FBI director J. Edgar Hoover—whose stewardship of the agency included sending a letter to Martin Luther King Jr. urging him to kill himself —and even accounts written by the police themselves. Although the origins of the crime stories are murky, most were handed to editors by the police. “The magazines had the imprimatur of officialdom and law enforcement,” says Murley. “The motivation of the police was not just to get people to understand murder within their communities, but more importantly, to side with them .”

These police were almost certainly white —in 1943, for instance, Black officers represented less than 1 percent of the NYPD . The reporters to whom they were leaking? Also white.

The lack of Black reporters in mainstream newspapers was so stark, it was noted by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, better known as the Kerner Commission. “The news media must publish newspapers and produce programs that recognize the existence and activities of Negroes as a group within the community and as a part of the larger community,” the commission recommended in its 1968 report. “Recruit more Negroes into journalism and broadcasting and promote those who are qualified to positions of significant responsibility.”

For the most part, well into the 1960s, Black journalists wrote for the major Black newspapers: the Chicago Daily Defender, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the Amsterdam News. They covered hundreds of lurid and ghastly crimes, particularly in the South. But those were, in essence, crimes with Black victims for a Black audience —deemed by white editors unworthy of mainstream papers or detective rags like Confidential or True Crime.

“The frequency with which Black men in particular were hung, and sometimes castrated and hung, in the South without any prosecution — and, if there was the rare prosecution, almost inevitable acquittal — indicated that crimes against people of color were not considered crimes by the larger society,” Walter Lowe Jr. told me recently.

Lowe was hired by the Chicago Sun-Times in 1971. There were four major newspapers in the city: the Sun-Times, the Daily News, the American, and the Tribune, with a combined reporting staff, according to Lowe, of nearly three-hundred. Lowe was the paper’s sole Black reporter.

“We were expected to cover the Black issues. We were not assigned, ever, to cover a lurid, sensationalist crime, or even a minor crime involving white people,” he recalls. Shut out of the white-cop-to-white-reporter-pipeline, Lowe would not write about the mysterious disappearance of Helen Brach or the Chicago mob. But Representative Ralph Metcalfe fighting the Mayor Richard Daley machine? Sure.

Even Black detectives, Lowe said, weren’t assigned crimes with flashy white victims. They were expected to solve crimes in their own community. “There was no Alex Cross,” he observed, referencing novelist James Patterson’s detective protagonist.

Professional segregation was in place, informally, at the New York Times as well. Mel Watkins, hired as a copy boy, became the first Black editor at the Times’s Sunday Book Review in 1966. When Watkins got to the paper, the only other Black employees he saw operated the elevator or worked in the cafeteria. An insidious edict was in place:  White writers frequently reviewed the work of Black authors, but the reverse was not permitted. This was, he says, “thought to be the natural order.” Even so, Watkins once suggested that James Baldwin review a book by Norman Mailer; the proposal was rejected. Mailer reviewing Baldwin, however, “would’ve been greeted with much less resistance.”

Back then, true crime, to the degree it existed, wasn’t taken seriously. Despite the serialization of “In Cold Blood” in 1965, and its publication in book form the next year, the Times Book Review treated this not as a burgeoning genre but a one-off. Even crime fiction, says Watkins, was considered “second level,” and was relegated to Anthony Boucher’s “Criminals at Large” column, which ran for nearly two decades.

Black writers were publishing nonfiction, however, in which, Watkins believed, criminals were often treated as heroes. “Being lawless was to be, in fact, defying the repressive societal laws,” he says, a point of view exemplified by the writing on Stack O’Lee , Shine , and the larger-than-life Jack Johnson . When the Times did review the nonfiction of Black writers, the subject matter tended to be the civil rights movement: Angela Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton. The focus of such work was indeed crime, Watkins felt, even if white readers did not recognize it as such. “Crime, from the Black perspective, is societal crime,” says Watkins. “You have this situation where society becomes the adversary .” The criminality to which Black Americans were routinely subjected was not lost on Watkins, whose father never put money in a bank because he’d seen Mississippi bankers claim it had vanished.

In his professional capacity, Watkins often dealt with book editors, and the lack of diversity was just as pronounced at the publishing houses. Decades later, he can name the three Black editors with whom he interacted: Erroll McDonald of Knopf, Charles Harris of Amistad Press, and Toni Morrison at Random House. (McDonald, who edited “ In the Belly of the Beast” by Jack Henry Abbott, who was twice convicted of manslaughter, said in a brief conversation that he knows very little about true crime. Other book editors I contacted either declined to comment or didn’t reply.)

Before we got off the phone, Watkins imparted a final thought: Black writers had published true crime, but it was sub rosa. Look, he said, at Richard Wright’s 1940 novel “Native Son,” about a 20-year-old Black man from the South Side of Chicago who killed a white woman and burned her body in a furnace. Watkins viewed this as “almost true crime.” He suspected the book was a fictionalized depiction of an actual crime. Which it was; Wright himself said it was based on murders committed by “The Brick Moron,” Robert Nixon, who was electrocuted in 1939 after allegedly killing several white women. Wright, said Watkins, “changed it into a novel in order to make his point.” This was out of necessity. “There was a reluctance to let Blacks write in an authoritative manner about realistic injustices.”

This reluctance endured for decades.

David Krajicek was police bureau chief at the New York Daily News from 1987 to 1992. It was a period of sky-high homicide rates in New York City, with 2,245 murders in 1990 alone. The NYPD public information office, he says, was the gatekeeper, and determined the extent to which journalists were notified about any of them. A cop in Queens would report a homicide to his sergeant, who in turn would tell a lieutenant, who talked to the precinct commander. The precinct commander contacted the Queens central command, who then passed the information up the chain. There were numerous filters before news of a crime would reach police headquarters and then, finally, the deputy commissioner for public information, who decided what was worth sharing with reporters.

Around the Daily News, reporters joked that, in order to be written about, a murder must contain all the elements —“ a white, attractive female killed in a horrible way, in an interesting place,” as Krajicek put it. Murders that didn’t fit the bill (say, a quadruple homicide in the Bronx ) simply didn’t get covered.

Daily News reporters did 18-month rotations on his crime desk. Success on the beat was largely contingent on maintaining a roster of cop sources, and not being perceived as adversarial. “Based on one story, you can lose all of your sources at the NYPD. If they decide that you’re a dick and you’ve done them wrong — done an individual cop wrong — the reputation spreads immediately,” Krajicek recalled. “If you show up with Black skin, their presumption’s already made about what your reputation is.” Natalie Byfield, a Black reporter who covered the Central Park Five case, had a particularly difficult time. She later wrote : “As a young African American female journalist watching and participating in the unfolding jogger coverage, I felt the sting and the heat of racism as I plotted my own course through the newsroom and the city.”

Socializing with the police wasn’t required, but it was useful. It was the favored practice of cop-friendly columnists, including Jimmy Breslin, who lamented , said a former Newsday editor, that “reporters don’t go out anymore to drink with police.”

Krajicek, early in his career, rode shotgun as cops took him on roundups of sex workers. “Ride-alongs,” as they’re known, are a long tradition on the beat. Understandably, not every reporter greets them with the same level of excitement.

In 2006, when Slate’s Joel Anderson was working for the Shreveport Times, he took over the night cops beat. His white, female predecessor was friendly with the police, who noted that Anderson wasn’t as pretty. As part of his orientation, he was pressured to do a ride-along. “I had no interest in doing any of that shit,” says Anderson. It would soon be clear to him that police have a version of events that sometimes conflicts with the victim’s and the accused’s versions. It wasn’t his job to figure out which party was most credible. Cops, Anderson was told, were “the guardians of the truth.” To approach the beat any other way was to do it wrong.

Anderson, who was soon reassigned to city government, realized incident reports were, at best, subjective post facto versions of events, and “not necessarily a reflection of what happened.” (In 2015, it should be noted, the district attorney overseeing Shreveport’s county, Caddo Parish, said Louisiana should “ kill more people .”)

A way around the official version of events is to either decenter law enforcement or bypass it entirely.

The absence of that perspective is why, even 40 years later, James Baldwin’s coverage of the Atlanta child murders—now the subject of a five-part HBO docuseries —is so startling.

As Casey Cep chronicled in the New Yorker, Baldwin was lured to Atlanta by Lowe — who had moved to Playboy as an editor — after dozens of the city’s Black children were murdered between 1978 and 1981. The resulting essay, titled “The Evidence of Things Not Seen,” proudly defies true crime tropes. Baldwin’s focus was not the murders or the investigations, but systemic anti-Black violence. He did not see the murders as sui generis. The killings, he believed, “ did not so much alter the climate of Atlanta as reveal, or, as it were, epiphanize it. ”

Baldwin’s insistence on writing about the larger issues at play —that societal sickness was as much to blame for the dead children as any murderer— and his refusal to treat the events as a minute-by-minute account, confounded critics. “ There is far too much sermonizing here on the overall state of race relations in America and not enough digging into specific facts of the Atlanta murders,” clucked the New York Times.

Baldwin did talk to detectives, but he didn’t take them at their word and never had. “We did not feel that the cops were protecting us, for we knew too much about the reasons for the kinds of crimes committed in the ghetto,” he wrote of his childhood , “but we feared black cops even more than white cops, because the black cop had to work so much harder — on your head — to prove to himself and his colleagues that he was not like all the other niggers.” He was more interested, recalled Lowe, in how white Americans historically viewed Black men as killers and rapists of white women. On his two trips to Atlanta, he wrestled with the assumptions around what constitutes a criminal and what constitutes a victim. He believed that Wayne Williams, who eventually stood trial for the murder of two adults, was probably innocent. He was having difficulty, says Lowe, “with not only the idea that the murderer might be Black but that the murderer might have some sort of pedophile profile.”

Lowe, who considers Alex Haley’s “Roots” to be the greatest work of true crime, continued: “[Baldwin] was like a doctor diagnosing a complex disease. But at the time, everybody wanted him to be a much more accusatory voice.”

The genre has evolved, somewhat.

A highly regarded true crime story from recent years doesn’t have a single on-the-record quote from law enforcement. The word “detective” appears only once. These absences in Karen K. Ho’s 2015 Toronto Life feature, “ Jennifer Pan’s Revenge ,” are particularly striking because it is, at least superficially, an old-fashioned minute-by-minute account about the murder of a Vietnamese family.

“I did not know how to interview cops when I did my story,” says Ho, who had never before written anything investigative. During the two years of reporting and writing, she neither met with police nor talked to them by phone. The story, which lays out in great detail how the Canadian daughter of Vietnamese immigrants hired hitmen to kill her parents, was based on jailhouse interviews, sworn video statements, letters, court transcripts, and yearbooks. It is also partially a memoir, for which Ho interviewed her own family.

It didn’t occur to Ho that interviewing police would be useful, or that the story demanded their perspective. Ho had not been raised to treat them with reverence or as an unquestionable source of information, and she still felt that way. She couldn’t relate to stories, even great ones like The Marshall Project and ProPublica’s “ An Unbelievable Story of Rape ,” in which investigators played the hero. For her, Jay Caspian Kang’s 2013 New York Times Magazine story about a middle-aged Korean man who shot and killed seven people at a university in Oakland, California, was more of a touchstone. “[Kang] showed me why having a nonwhite perspective on a crime involving people of color was an asset, and not a detriment or hindrance to my reporting of it,” says Ho.

Ho expertly wrote about the overarching failures that led to the Pan murders. Just as Baldwin told readers about the anti-Black violence that made the killing of Atlanta’s children inevitable, Ho revealed the academic pressure brought to bear on children of Asian immigrants. Referring to her father and her own upbringing, she wrote: “I felt like a hamster on a wheel, sprinting to meet some sort of expectation, solely determined by him, that was always just out of reach.”

Talking to Ho sparked a reconsideration of what true crime ought to be. The genre is so white largely because the definition of crime is so narrow. Ho cited Andrea González-Ramírez’s Type Investigations feature on domestic violence in Puerto Rico . Isn’t that crime? she asked. What about the work of Adam Serwer, who writes with cutting poetry about systemic anti-Black brutality ? What about Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s story on Dylann Roof ? Aren’t these works of true crime, too? 

A few days later, I called Steven Thrasher, who, while not a true crime writer by trade, had written about Michael Bloomberg’s fondness for incarcerating the city’s Black men and a series of fine stories on the “ Tiger Mandingo ” case. He’s also been one of the more prominent voices warning against “copaganda” —sunny, kid-gloved portrayals of law enforcement. We talked about how true crime so often prizes the perceived oddity. “ Exceptionalism becomes the story,” he said. Oftentimes, true depravity is deadly repetition.

Thrasher pointed to a lecture delivered by former Guardian columnist Gary Younge in 2016 , in which Younge cited the tired maxim, attributed to a New York newspaper editor: When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news. But what if, asked Younge, we’ve got it backward? What if the thousand people shot and killed by police in the last year is the real story? Or what if the dog-bites-man story is quite literal? He cited a Department of Justice report on the Ferguson protests, which found that “in every canine bite incident for which racial information is available, the subject was African American.”

If a dog bites man again and again and again, that, too, is a story.

The genre of true crime should expand to the point where it is unrecognizable from what it is today. It should include the work of Wesley Lowery, Joel Anderson , and Albert Samaha , and also Aura Bogado, who writes horrifying dispatches on America’s ongoing crime against humanity : its immigration system. Bogado, doing excellent, humane work for Reveal on a beat that is often prominently populated by white men, has written about the federal government forcibly drugging children at a Texas residential treatment center. I expect Bogado would find the notion of her stories being classified with the likes of Truman Capote and Ann Rule more than a little laughable. The genre is, she told me, “a niche within the larger world of journalism, which is itself a segregated world, right?”

That must change, if it is to have continued relevance and value. Progress has been slow , but substantive; consider the peerless work of Cree reporter Connie Walker, and her CBC investigation into a vanished Native child. But it’s a notable exception. Pervasive whiteness is a decades-long problem that won’t be solved quickly, if ever.

After all, as Walter Lowe told me, you can’t sell a product for which there is no audience. To have more books, features, and podcasts by and about nonwhite people, there must be a demand for them. (There is.) In order for there to be sufficient, recognized demand, he said, nonwhite victims must be seen as people. That part, maddeningly, is not a given.

“The horse is what’s happening in the street; it’s the growing interest by white people in an accurate history of this country. The cart is whatever shifts in literary culture result from that,” continued Lowe, who cited Carter G. Woodson’s 1933 work “ The Mis-Education of the Negro.” “What has not been dealt with is the miseducation of the white person in America. What is happening right now, from grammar school up through college, is a serious re-examination of the way American history has been taught — a serious re-examination of the racist lens through which many white folks in America have been taught — and wanting to change the lens, to be more equitable to the points of view of people of color and Native Americans.”

Only after such a fundamental change will there be lasting demand for true crime, and a more sophisticated and inclusive sense of what “qualifies” for the genre, by and about people of color. That, Lowe concludes, “is the horse that is going to pull the cart.”

Essay on Crime

Students are often asked to write an essay on Crime in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Crime

Understanding crime.

Crime refers to acts that violate the law. They are considered harmful and punishable by a governing authority. Crimes can range from theft to murder.

Types of Crimes

There are various types of crimes. Violent crimes include actions like assault, while theft falls under property crimes. White-collar crimes involve fraud or embezzlement.

Consequences of Crime

Crimes have severe consequences. They can lead to imprisonment, fines, or even death penalties. Moreover, they harm communities and individuals, causing fear and damage.

Preventing Crime

Preventing crime involves law enforcement, education, and community programs. Everyone can contribute to a safer society by obeying laws and reporting suspicious activities.

Also check:

250 Words Essay on Crime

Introduction.

Crime, a pervasive aspect of society, is an act that violates a law and is punishable by the state. It disruptively breaches societal norms, creating a sense of insecurity and fear. This essay delves into the nature of crime, its causes, and the role of law enforcement.

The Nature of Crime

Crime is a complex phenomenon, varying across cultures and societies. It ranges from minor offences like theft to severe ones like homicide. The nature of crime reflects societal values, as what is considered criminal is determined by the prevailing legal and moral code.

Causes of Crime

The causes of crime are multifaceted, involving biological, psychological, and sociological factors. Biological theories suggest genetic predispositions towards criminal behaviour. Psychological theories focus on the individual’s mental processes and their interaction with the environment. Sociological theories, on the other hand, emphasize societal structures and inequalities as major crime contributors.

Law Enforcement and Crime

Law enforcement agencies play a crucial role in maintaining order, preventing crime, and ensuring justice. They function as a deterrent, keeping potential criminals in check. However, their effectiveness is contingent upon their ability to adapt to evolving criminal tactics.

In conclusion, crime is a societal issue with deep roots in individual and social structures. Understanding its nature and causes is key to formulating effective strategies for prevention and control. As society evolves, so too must our approach to understanding and combating crime.

500 Words Essay on Crime

Crime, a social and legal concept, has been a part of human society since its inception. It refers to the actions that violate the norms and laws of a society, leading to harm or potential harm to individuals or the community. The study of crime, its causes, effects, and prevention, is a crucial aspect of sociology, psychology, and criminology.

Crime is a complex phenomenon, varying across societies and times. It is not static but evolves with societal norms and legal frameworks. What may be considered a crime in one society may not be in another, and similarly, what was a crime in the past might not be so today. For instance, homosexuality was once criminalized in many societies, but it is now widely accepted and decriminalized.

Types of Crime

Crimes are generally categorized into personal crimes, property crimes, inchoate crimes, statutory crimes, and financial crimes. Personal crimes involve direct harm or threat to an individual, such as assault or robbery. Property crimes involve interfering with another person’s property, like burglary or theft. Inchoate crimes are those that were started but not completed, while statutory crimes are violations of specific statutes. Financial crimes, such as fraud or embezzlement, involve the illegal conversion of property ownership.

The causes of crime are multifaceted, often interwoven with societal, psychological, and economic factors. Poverty, lack of education, substance abuse, and family violence are some common societal factors leading to crime. Psychological factors include personality disorders, low self-control, and aggression. Economic factors, such as unemployment or income inequality, also contribute significantly to crime rates.

Effects of Crime

Crime prevention strategies are as diverse as the causes of crime. They include social strategies, such as improving education and employment opportunities, and legal strategies, such as effective law enforcement and fair judicial systems. Psychological interventions, like counseling and therapy, can also play a significant role in crime prevention.

Understanding crime is essential to creating a safe and harmonious society. By examining its nature, types, causes, effects, and prevention, we can develop effective strategies to reduce crime rates and mitigate its impact on individuals and communities. It is a collective responsibility that requires the concerted efforts of individuals, communities, and governments.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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A Brief History of the Rise—and Evolution—of True Crime Books

Who writes true crime it was once the domain of lawyers, reporters, and cops. but not anymore..

An investigator, a judge and a reporter walk into a bar. They’re all promoting their latest true crime books.

There’s a lot of truth to that variation on the old joke. For decades, many of the best-known books recounting real-life murders, kidnappings and “trials of the century” sprang from the minds of cops, prosecutors, judges and the reporters who covered the biggest and most shocking and sordid cases.

Who are the writers of true crime and what draws them to write about some of life’s darkest moments? All of us are ultimately writers, of course, but increasingly the writers have a background that is very different from criminal justice or journalism. And the good news is, true crime writing is becoming more broad-based, drawing from a variety of perspectives.

The question of just who writes true crime books sprang to my mind recently when I participated in an online authors roundtable about my latest true crime book, “The Westside Park Murders,” co-authored with my longtime friend and writing partner Douglas Walker. The other participants in the forum, organized by Arcadia/History Press, were Rita Y. Shuler, a retired South Carolina law enforcement agent who wrote “The Low Country Murder of Gwendolyn Elaine Fogle,” and Raymond A. Guadagni, a longtime California judge who wrote “The Napa Murder of Anita Fagiani Andrews.”

Shuler had been, over the decades, a state forensic photography expert who worked on the Fogle cold case, while Guadagni was the judge in the eventual criminal case resulting from the Andrews murder. Their familiarity with the cases they wrote about could hardly be more first-hand.

While there’s no likely end to true crime books from the three traditional professions—after all, almost no one has more exposure to murders than investigators, judges and reporters, with the possible exception of coroners—the past and present of the true crime genre are finally, slowly, becoming more diverse, in many senses of the word.

The groundbreaking true crime books

The first true crime book was probably the Bible, although there’s little doubt the book is strewn with fables and parables and metaphors and downright lies. But there’s a hell (no pun intended) of a lot of murder and mayhem and slaying with various jawbones of various asses.

True crime writing was long in the province of newspapers and magazines, but began making its way into books in the early decades of the 20th  century. Edmund Pearson wrote one of the first true crime books, “Studies in Murder,” in 1924. It included an essay on Lizzie Borden.

Four decades later came a true crime revolution. “In Cold Blood” was, famously, a “non-fiction novel.” Before Truman Capote’s book was published in 1966, some might have wondered what that term meant. (It was an early attempt to place true events into a narrative that felt like fiction.) After reading it, it’s more likely that they were struck by how Capote turned what was really an unremarkable American rural narrative—family slain by drifters—into such a compelling book.

Capote’s story of the 1959 murders of four members of the Klutter family of Kansas by Richard Hickock and Perry Smith showed the impact of such a violent act on a small community. It was a story Capote could have told about any of dozens, maybe hundreds, of such desperate events. (In one of our books, I wrote about the 1956 murder of an Indiana husband and wife whose killer, the wife’s brother, searched via airplane for their yet-to-be-discovered corpses. Presumably the killer knew to pilot his plane away from the water-filled gravel pit where he had submerged the car in which he had placed his beloved family members.) It was the way Capote, a lifelong writer, told their story that made the book so widely read.

(I heartily recommend reading Casey Cep’s 2019 book “Furious Hours” for insight into writer Harper Lee’s role in shaping Capote’s reporting and narrative for “In Cold Blood.” More on Cep’s book later.)

Charles Bugliosi’s 1974 “Helter Skelter” set the standard, and the expectation, for more true crime books: A thick narrative told in exhaustive detail by the prosecutor in the case. The case, in this instance, was against Charles Manson and his followers after the murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Bugliosi’s book, written with Curt Gentry, was for decades the best-selling true crime book ever published. It is straightforward and by the book, as you’d expect.

Bugliosi went on to write books about other notorious crimes and criminals and would see many of his books adapted for TV and movies. Before he died in 2015, he was seen as the archetypal true-crime author, with all the pluses and minuses associated with that label. 

True crime made personal

Ann Rule was a pioneering female writer of true crime books and she brought something to her first book that few reporters, cops and prosecutors can boast. Rule’s background was in law enforcement, as an officer for the Seattle Police Department in the early 1970s, but it was her time volunteering for a crisis hotline center that clinched her career as a writer. A fellow volunteer at the center was a personable and handsome young man named Ted Bundy.

Rule’s 1980 book “The Stranger Beside Me” recounts the bizarre circumstances surrounding her friendship with her co-worker. Bundy confessed to 30 slayings in the mid 1970s, but considering Bundy’s reputation as a liar, the actual total may never be known. He was executed in 1989 in Florida.

John Berendt’s 1994 book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” night have opened many eyes to what a true crime book could be in the wake of Capote’s work. Sure, many earlier books had been artful and riveting and lurid and sensational, sometimes cranked out in short order to capitalize on a grisly murder or murders. But Berendt’s book, which made a huge impression on me, introduced not only a crime and a killer but the cast of characters in the city of Savannah, a place Berendt portrayed as still very much a vestige of the old South even by the time of the 1981 death that sets the story in motion.

Berendt’s background is very much one of journalism, with stints at Esquire and New York magazine. His book still holds the record for weeks as a New York Times bestseller.

“Columbine” was Dave Cullen’s 2009 book about the April 20, 1999 massacre of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in the suburb of Denver. Cullen points out that the act of domestic terror by two young white men was really a failed bombing. The book looks at the before, during and after of the attack and punctures some of the myths that sprang up in the wake of the tragedy, which was then the worst school shooting in history. Cullen was, before his book was published, known as a newspaper and Slate writer. He had been early in covering the Columbine tragedy.

Cullen’s background and reporting on the crime provide a strong point of “Columbine.” If early reporting, especially in-depth reporting, is the first draft of history, it is also, intentionally or not, the source of a lot of misinformation.

“I was among the guilty parties,” Cullen wrote. In 2012, Cullen wrote in a newspaper column that he, as well as other reporters who were early on the scene, “created those myths for one reason: we were trying to answer the burning question of why, and we were trying to answer it way too soon.”

It’s possible there’s no more baffling and distressing true crime than the Jonestown massacre, in which preacher and cult leader Jim Jones led more than 900 people to their deaths at the People’s Temple Agricultural Project in Guyana, South America, in November 1978.

The massacre at Jonestown spawned many myths, including the idea that more than 900 people willingly killed themselves, and sayings such as “drink the Kool-Aid,” which is offensive to the memory of the people who died, said author Julia Scheeres, a veteran journalist who wrote the 2011 book “A Thousand Lives” about the people of Jonestown.

Scheeres, who told me she considers herself a “true crime dabbler,” said she’s more interested in cults and the victims of crime than the perpetrators.

“Hannah Arendt mentioned the ‘banality of evil’ in her Eichmann book, and I think this is true in many situations of monstrous, murderous humans,” Scheeres said. “They can come off as one-dimensional. For me, what was far more interesting in the Jonestown case was the reasons that people had for joining Jim Jones’ church—the utopia they sought to create.

“That narrative was far more moving than the story of Jones’ insanity,” Scheeres added.

“Empire of Sin,” Gary Krist’s 2014 book about jazz and vice and death in early 20th  century New Orleans, is in a similar vein to a classic true crime history book, Erik Larson’s 2003 “The Devil in the White City.” Both flesh out details of a tumultuous and deadly time in a big city (New Orleans and Chicago, respectively.)

In a question-and-answer addition to his book, Krist, when asked why he chose to focus on New Orleans, answered perfectly: “I love the fact that New Orleans was the first major American metropolis to build an opera house but the last to build a sewer system.” Krist is a writer by trade, for newspapers, magazines and long-form non-fiction.

Larson, for his part, went into journalism for the same reason as a lot of people: He was inspired by “All the President’s Men,” which is certainly a true crime book.

True crime books are plentiful enough to fill a bookstore and many of the best reflect the diversity that is breaking in to the genre.

The rise of the true crime buff and much-needed diversity

The 2000s story collection series, “The Best American Crime Reporting,” did a good job of curating some of the best journalism about crime for each year before the series itself expired around 2010. But the series—maybe a reflection of the state of the genre—paid scant attention to the work of women writers.

As true crime surged into the decade that followed, women wrote some of the best the category had to offer.

In 2017’s “American Fire: Love, Arson and Life in a Vanishing Land,” Monica Hesse, a journalist, looked at what might at first glance seem like a crime fairly light on life-or-death consequences for a riveting true crime book: A series of arsons in a fading Virginia county.

“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” Michelle McNamara’s riveting 2018 book that documents not only the rape and murder spree, over the course of decades, of the California unsub she dubbed “The Golden State Killer,” but also McNamara’s “obsession” with the case. (The subtitle of the book is “One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer.”) As the principal author of the website True Crime Diary, McNamara turned her hobby—researching some of the darkest chapters in crime history—into a compulsively readable online resource.

McNamara died on April 21, 2016, two years before her book was published. The book was completed with help from writers and journalists Paul Haynes and Billy Jensen and McNamara’s husband, Patton Oswalt.

It remains one of the best true crime books of the modern era, despite the posthumous nature of some of the writing and editing. The book is open about this and almost certainly gained some strength by making McNamara more of a “character” in the story—contacting investigators, gaining their confidence, piecing together disparate police reports—than she otherwise might have been.

There’s a strong and somewhat unusual plot point that’s sewed through the book, with McNamara the mom, wife and driven amateur—amateur only in the sense she didn’t carry a badge—detective. It represented a different kind of voice for the genre and a much-needed female perspective.

In 2013, years before the book, McNamara wrote about her search for Los Angeles Magazine. “By day I’m a 42-year-old stay-at-home mom with a sensible haircut and Goldfish crackers lining my purse. In the evening, however, I’m something of a DIY detective. I delve into cold cases by scouring the Internet for any digital crumbs authorities may have overlooked, then share my theories with the 8,000 or so mystery buffs who visit my blog regularly.

“When my family goes to sleep, I start clicking, combing through digitized phone books, school yearbooks, and Google Earth views of crime scenes: a bottomless pit of potential leads for the laptop investigator who now exists in the virtual world.

“The Golden State Killer has little recognition; he didn’t even have a catchy name until I coined one,” she wrote in that article. If this was hubris, it was damn well deserved.

McNamara’s transparency was not only bracing but took us into a territory we’d never visited before: Mom by day, relentless hunter by night. It’s possible her True Crime Diary site could be considered the forerunner for the seeming thousands of podcasts that have come since.

HBO later developed a documentary series based on McNamara’s book. When a suspect in the crimes was arrested in 2018, authorities said the high profile of the case over the years had helped.

McNamara’s book is often chilling – I don’t recommend reading it late at night – but no more so than in the closing pages, when McNamara speaks directly to the killer.

“One day soon, you’ll hear a car pull up to your curb, an engine cut out. You’ll hear footsteps coming up your front walk. … This is how it ends for you. ‘You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark,’ you threatened a victim once. Open the door. Show us your face. Walk into the light.”

Casey Cep’s 2019 book “Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee,” accomplished a hell of a feat. Actually more than one feat. She wrote an interesting true crime story, about a small-town Alabama preacher suspected in multiple murders. She gave us insight into how Harper Lee, who considered writing about the preacher but didn’t, researched the case. And probably most entertainingly, Cep detailed the huge role Lee played in the research and writing of her friend Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”

Lee was a figure the people of Kansas were at ease with during the research for “In Cold Blood.” She really handed Capote much of the insight and information he used in the book. Her contributions undoubtedly made the book better than it might have been.

And it made Cep’s book a fascinating mix of true crime and literary history. Interestingly, Cep set out to write for the New Yorker about “Go Set a Watchman,” the posthumously-published Lee novel that was a different version of the story the author told in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In her research in Alabama, however, she discovered that Lee had intended to write a true crime book about a set of murders involving a faithless minister.

So like a lot of books, and some true crime books, “Furious Hours” started as one thing but ended up as something else. And readers were the better for it.

A way to process the dark

I’ve only scratched the surface of great true crime books by great true crime writers and barely scratched the surface of great true crime books written by great women writers. I still need to read “The Real Lolita” by the compulsively readable Sarah Weinman and “Ghettoside” by Jill Levy. And many others.

In a 2018 column for the Los Angeles Times, crime writer Megan Abbott noted that she had been a true crime reader since reading Bugliosi’s “Helter Skelter” as a school-age girl. She cited a 2010 study in Social Psychological and Personality Science that women are more significantly drawn to true crime than are men. Are women more interested in crime stories because they’re so much more likely—at something like 70 percent—to be killed by an intimate partner than are men?

Abbott wrote that she believes women see true crime books (and presumably popular true crime TV series and podcasts) as a way to read about and process the “dark” factors of their lives that they’re “not supposed to talk about,” like domestic abuse, sexual assault, conflicted feelings about motherhood and the many ways the justice system can fail women.

Surely there’s something of the same motivation for the people of any gender who write and read true crime: The books offer a glimpse of a worst-case scenario for any of us and give us a chance to feel our way through our fears.

And the more the writers of true crime books look like the subjects of their books and the readers of their books, the better for all of us.

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A New Podcast Is Examining Why We’re Obsessed With True Crime Podcasts

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A new podcast exploring the enormous popularity of true crime podcasts yielded surprising findings about why listeners — predominantly women — are drawn to the often-fraught medium.

When two recent Stanford University graduates began to work on their aptly titled “True Crime Podcast Podcast” (the duplication is intentional), they expected to uncover “a lot of really more sinister aspects of this media genre,” co-producer Kyleigh McPeek told HuffPost. Instead, she and her co-producer and co-host, Grace Carroll, were surprised by how many people have found validation, empowerment, empathy, community and closure through true crime podcasts.

“It’s a much more complicated conversation than we anticipated,” McPeek said. “There’s definitely some real problems with it, but also a lot of really positive benefits.”

Over the 18 months they worked on the “True Crime Podcast Podcast” for a school honors project begun in their senior year at Stanford, McPeek and Carroll interviewed podcasters, researchers, journalists and attorneys, as well as some of the people who work behind the scenes to help podcasters turn their hobby into a profit-sustaining enterprise.

More than one-third of the 100 million Americans who listen to podcasts each week regularly listen to true crime, McPeek and Carroll said, and true crime podcasts make up an astounding 24% of the 6 million podcast titles currently available on Spotify .

The vast majority of people who listen to true crime podcasts are women. According to media scholar Kelli Boling, who discusses gender dynamics in the podcast’s second episode, women make up 73% of the audience for true crime podcasts.

Among those women are domestic violence survivors, who Boling said have found a sense of community and validation where they feel seen after being silenced or victim-shamed and -blamed by law enforcement and the legal system.

The true crime story structure can be especially cathartic for these women, McPeek told HuffPost.

“At the end of a true crime story, there’s a resolution, there’s a conclusion, there’s closure, which often in their own cases, there isn’t, just due to the nature of a lot of the legal issues around prosecuting domestic violence crimes, and a lot of the emotional things attached to that,” McPeek said.

Still, entertainment is the primary reason women say they listen to true crime podcasts, according to Boling and other researchers. That doesn’t have to mean “voyeuristic murder porn,” as McPeek and Carroll describe in the podcast’s introduction.

“There’s nothing inherently negative about something being entertainment,” McPeek told HuffPost. “Entertainment is what brings a lot of color to our lives.”

An entertaining true crime podcast can still have the power to bring women closer together and highlight the injustices of the legal system, she added.

“But I think where true crime runs into a lot of trouble is that it kind of dresses up as journalism in a lot of ways, and the way it conveys information that we’re getting is really different from just reported fact,” McPeek said.

Listeners often aren’t aware of the difference between podcasts that follow the principles of rigorous journalism and those that don’t, McPeek and Carroll found. Also, taking the time to fact-check, interview sources and edit can hurt a podcast’s chances of success.

“It disadvantages you in the market for podcasts, because there’s such a preference for speed and output,” Carroll said, adding that’s often at odds with the time and resources necessary to follow ethical journalistic standards. “In fact, there’s a bunch of economic incentives encouraging you to not.”

A hasty production and lack of guardrails can result in factual errors and serious lapses like accidentally implicating someone who has nothing to do with the crime, Carroll said. Meanwhile, lucrative podcasts rely on advertising, which demands that people keep listening for entire episodes and seasons. To retain listeners, “You need to parse out your information really slowly, and that leaves people a lot of time to draw conclusions or have, like, a lot of misleading information in the immediate moment,” McPeek said.

In unsolved cases, podcasts’ speculation about a possible perpetrator — what McPeek calls a “huge trope of the genre” — can result in doxing private citizens and potentially taint a jury pool.

“And it’s really hard for our legal system to start regulating that or protecting that in our very protected criminal jury system,” McPeek said.

On the other hand, McPeek noted that the criminal justice system has “very limited resources,” and podcasts’ huge platforms can help jump-start investigations and bring attention to cold cases. But that can be a double-edged sword for victims and family members, she said.

“[They] are put in this really tricky position where they need to get media attention on a case” to persuade the police to follow up,” McPeek said, but that publicity “comes with all the really bad parts about getting media attention on the case.” That includes, for example, the worldwide vilification of Amanda Knox and the harassment experienced by Sarah Turney , who became a public advocate for crime victims after she accused her father of killing her older sister. (He was acquitted of second-degree murder last year.) Both women are interviewed by McPeek and Carroll on their podcast.

After interviewing victims’ family members, like Turney and other “really dedicated members” of the true crime community, McPeek found that there are “undeniably really positive parts of this media genre.”

“That makes it a really complicated kind of conversation to have” about true crime podcasting, she said, adding, “There’s definitely some real problems with it, but also a lot of really positive benefits.”

After completing her research and editing it into podcast form, McPeek is left with two minds about the power of true crime podcasts:

“Part of the value of true crime is it’s really cathartic, and it adds a lot of closure to people who are victims of violent crime [and] brings them together in these true crime communities … Maybe that’s a really incredible power of this medium.”

But the resolution in many true crime podcasts’ “beginning, middle and end” storytelling structure often does not reflect reality, she added.

“[Or] maybe it misrepresents our criminal justice system and crime generally in our world, and is not the truth about crime, which is interesting, because we call the genre a true crime,” McPeek said.

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True Crime, Keith Morrison and Me

By Jane Coaston

Host of “The Argument” podcast

“Dateline” started its 30th season on Friday. It’s the longest-running series on NBC prime time and one of the best-known true crime programs in America.

True crime is an extraordinarily popular genre with a long history. The English essayist Thomas De Quincey called the true-crime enthusiasts of the early 1800s “murder-fanciers,” writing in an 1827 satirical essay, “Every fresh atrocity of that class, which the police annals of Europe bring up, they meet and criticize as they would a picture, statue or other work of art.”

Today, true crime continues to be popular, especially among women . And, looking at the podcasts I’m subscribed to and the documentaries I watch, it appears that true crime is also especially popular with me.

I read Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” one of the most famous works of true crime writing, when I was a freshman in high school. If I am listening to a podcast, it is probably about crime. If I am reading a book, it is probably about crime. (Nazi Germany is another obsession of mine, but that’s another story for another time.) I am deeply, hopelessly fascinated by stories about crime and criminals.

But I also have guilt about being a “murder fancier.”

Keith Morrison seems to relate. I spoke to the well-known correspondent for “Dateline” — who became even better known after a “Saturday Night Live” sketch a decade ago that played up the voyeurism inherent to the genre — and told him that it felt weird to enjoy “Dateline” and the podcasts he’s hosted that focus on complex stories of betrayal, deceit and, yes, murder.

“It’s weird to say you love doing them,” he said. “They’re fascinating, and terrible at the same time.”

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