Category: True Crime
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Criminal Is a Defective, but Not a Type
Which matters more for influencing criminal behavior: nature or nuture? This 1919 paper from England, “the most complete first hand scientific study of the criminal that exists in any language,” found it was nature. Presenting what seems to be the most complete first hand scientific study of the criminal that exists in any language, it…
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The Laying On of Hands for Fingerprints
In 1919, “The fingerprints of every sailor and soldier serving the United States are on record… In Argentina it is true of every civilian. In time it may be true of all the world.” Indeed. By 2009, the FBI had 63 million fingerprints on file. Their database started in 1924, just five years after this article…
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Is the Czar Dead?
Was the czar dead? It was February 1919 and seven months had elapsed since anyone had heard from Russia’s Czar Nicholas II. Turns out, yes: he was executed. The tsar abdicated the throne in March 1917 after the February Revolution, then he and his family were imprisoned in the Ipatiev House. More than a year later…
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Not Convicts, Graduates of Sing Sing University
New York’s notorious prison Sing Sing added a vocational training school in 1917. “It is my hope, entirely outside of the work of this commission,” said Mr. Hubbell [Charles Bulkley Hubbell, Chairman of the Commission on New Prisons of the State of New York], “that the time is not far distant when prison extension work…
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We Have Too Many Laws, Thinks Henry A. Wise
It’s a busy week for me, so sadly I couldn’t write any commentary or pull-quotes from this article. Anyone care to do the honors in the comments? WE HAVE TOO MANY LAWS, THINKS HENRY A. WISE: U.S. District Attorney Believes That as More Offenders Are Being Punished There is an Awakening of the Public Conscience…
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The Modern Sherlock Holmes Is A Scientific Man
That reminds me: the modern Sherlock Holmes is now streaming on Netflix. THE MODERN SHERLOCK HOLMES IS A SCIENTIFIC MAN: Swiss Professor Tells of Professional Criminals and the Means of Detecting Them in a Book That Has the Indorsement of M. Lepine, Head of the Paris Police. (PDF) From September 24, 1911
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New Identification System Ousts Rogues’ Gallery
This new system of identifying criminals looks at individual facial features. “The whole system of the ‘portrait parler’ is a process of elimination,” explained Capt. Faurot. “It is on that basis we are to reorganize the Rogues’ Gallery. We will be able to divide the number of portraits to be searched on a given case…
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Electric Machine To Tell Guilt Of Criminals
The “psychometer” described in this article works in the same way as modern polygraph machines. As the article puts it, “the human body’s resistance to an electrical current increased with the increase of the motions.” Skin conductivity, along with blood pressure, pulse, and respiration, can all be indicators that a person is lying. But the…
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Where Witches Flourish In This Twentieth Century
Meta Immerman, a dressmaker from New York, moved to Allentown. Her neighbors the Kipps noticed she was a bit odd. She walked barefoot through grass. She owned an electric flashlight. She ate nuts and raw eggs. Clearly, she was a witch. The Kipps called police, and Meta Immerman was arrested and spent 48 hours in…
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Government Is Investigating Fake Universities
These fake universities, sometimes called diploma mills, or degree mills, are still around and are still a problem. I occasionally see people in the news who have been exposed for their fake diplomas, like this guy in Philadelphia who used a fake degree to commit fraud. There’s even a blog about diploma mills in the…
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