In one of the largest jewelry heists in history, robbers -- at least two wearing women's wigs and dresses -- relieved a Harry Winston boutique of $108 million worth of diamond rings, necklaces, and watches. Despite criminal investigation teachings that robbers "have better things to do with their money than to buy an array of masks and disguises" and will opt for functional attire, many thieves express themselves creatively and impractically through costumery, dressing as Dracula and Black Father Christmas, a tree, Greek prime ministers, clowns, and ghosts, while others cover their faces with duct tape, cookie dough, drywall, and baking-flour-and-ketchup. Minimalists just wear men's underwear and women's thongs on their heads.
posted by terranova on Dec 6, 2008 - 29 comments

McHenry and his "roommates" -- GOP Rep Patrick McHenry (NC), co-owner of a DC home with Scott G. Stewart, former chair of the College Republican Nat'l Cttee (and bilker of many senior citizens), received a DC home-ownership reduction improperly. McHenry's actual home in North Carolina was apparently also home to quite a collection of young men: (convicted fraudulent voter) Michael Aaron Lay, Neil Everett Capano, Matthew Allen Hamilton, and (multiple violations, including "death by vehicle") Jason Jent Deans. Also, McHenry's 04 consultant Ralph Gonzales was one of the men involved in a recent FL murder/suicide, and links to Robert Drake, the killer (political work in NC and escort service connections), are still being documented. Stay tuned! [more inside]
posted by amberglow on Sep 28, 2007 - 67 comments

Have a good day Ms. Beyer! "Before you are rude to another telemarketer, you should keep in mind that he or she has your phone number and your address." Texas Telemarketer sends a threatening letter to a hanger-upper.
posted by wfrgms on Dec 7, 2004 - 39 comments

New Behaviour Correction - The North American penal systems are outdated. If we look to the UK, evidence of specific punishment points to a new method of behavior correction. The current NA system seems incredibly unspecific when we punish a host of crimes by sending people to the same cage.
posted by lightweight on Sep 3, 2004 - 11 comments

Policing Virtual Reality. Wired reports on Sociolotron(NSFW). A MMORPG that allows gamers to rob, rape, and kill other players. Being a gamer, I understand that actions in an MMORPG aren't "real" but how far can you take it?

"Lord Foucault is an admitted rapist. He does it on impulse -- for the thrill of it and for the feeling of control he has over his female victims." Is this any different than running around and killing dwarves?
posted by jopreacher on Jun 29, 2004 - 50 comments

Rap Not Music to Whitey's Ears A group of alleged white extremists facing treason charges in South Africa has complained about being forced to listen to "black" music while on remand in prison.
posted by turbanhead on Aug 19, 2003 - 14 comments

Man sentenced to read "To Kill A Mockingbird." For spitting at a cop and disorderly conduct, a PA man is jailed and required to read and write a report on Harper Lee's classic. What other books might be fit punishment for certain crimes? (via Obscurestore)
posted by serafinapekkala on Jul 16, 2003 - 52 comments

Sixth-grader goes to jail for stomping in a mud puddle. Police called it a proper arrest.
posted by Ron on Apr 15, 2003 - 25 comments

The Overcrowding Police

Belleville inspectors and armed police officers show up without search warrants to check for occupancy code violations, and ticket people who don't let them in -- a practice experts say is unconstitutional.
.....
Invite friends over, babysit your grandchildren or allow relatives to spend the night in Belleville and you risk an armed police officer turning up at your door to search your home and give you a ticket. Enforcement teams consisting of a housing inspector and a police officer do not obtain search warrants before showing up to check for occupancy code violations, a Belleville News-Democrat investigation found.
posted by nofundy on Dec 13, 2002 - 14 comments

Neighbour jailed for branding pedophile's genitals. A man attacks his two young nephews and his neighbours find out and burn him with a hot spatula as punishment. The neighbour is then imprisoned. I realise this is vigilante justice and on an intellectual level, it's wrong, but emotionally I'm finding it hard to muster much sympathy for people who attack kids and face a backlash like this. What are your reactions?
posted by Jubey on Aug 29, 2002 - 45 comments

A tale of two dumb-dumbs. This car enthusiast forum story really has me wondering who the dumb one is in this situation: the guy who got his car stolen, or the guy who stole the car.

Guy befriends another guy on the forum, starts talking, gives out his VIN, information on when he drives his car to work, and his address only to have the other forum-goer steal his car. Then, the brilliant car thief posts up parts from said stolen car on the EXACT SAME forum under a new name, then makes the mistake of logging in under his old name and posting a message in his sale thread.

An amusing read to say the least.
posted by PWA_BadBoy on Jul 11, 2002 - 10 comments

"Four years after father's dragging death, Ross Byrd speaks about his change of heart over executions." James Byrd Jr., was tied to the back of a pickup with logging chain, then dragged along a Texas country road until his body fell apart. White supremacist John W. King was one of two men sentenced to death for Byrd's murder. "On Wednesday, Ross Byrd traveled to the state prison in Huntsville to lead a 24-hour fast and prayer vigil on King's behalf. 'When I heard King had exhausted his appeals, I began thinking, `How can this help me or solve my pain?' and I realized it couldn't,' Byrd said."

So much for retribution. Instead of yet another senseless execution (this next to be performed with 18-gauge intravenous needle in lieu of logging chain), ponder a possible healing...a rebirth...crystallizing from the son of a murdered black man saving the life of his father's racist killer.
posted by fold_and_mutilate on Jul 5, 2002 - 57 comments

Study Shows Building Prisons Did Not Prevent Repeat Crimes
(New York Times link--you know the drill)
The rate at which inmates released from state prisons commit new crimes rose from 1983 to 1994, a time when the number of people behind bars doubled, according to a Justice Department study released yesterday.
The report found that 67 percent of inmates released from state prisons in 1994 committed at least one serious new crime within three years. That is 5 percent higher than among inmates released in 1983.
Criminologists generally agree that the prison-building binge of the last 25 years, in which the number of Americans incarcerated quadrupled to almost two million, has helped reduce the crime rate simply by keeping criminals off the streets. There has been more debate about whether longer sentences and the increase in the number of prisoners have also helped to deter people from committing crimes. The new report, some crime experts say, suggests that the answer is no. (More inside)
posted by y2karl on Jun 2, 2002 - 22 comments

"The Texas conveyor belt of death rolls on. Against international law, three Texas inmates face imminent execution for murders committed when they were children. Since 1998, Texas has killed five child offenders - people who were under 18 at the time of the crimes. If Napoleon Beazley, TJ Jones and Toronto Patterson are put to death on 28 May, 8 August, and 28 August respectively, Texas will have executed as many child offenders in a four-month period as Iran, the next worst perpetrator outside the USA, has carried out in the whole of the past decade."

Ha! Yet another area where them loser Axis of Evil® fellas ain't up to the standards of the good ol' U.$. of A.
posted by fold_and_mutilate on May 20, 2002 - 124 comments

Interview with an Ol Dirty Bastard. This is the first interview with ODB I have seen since he was thrown in the slammer. ODB's first two releases were crazy brilliant and full of life. Now he sits in one of the worst prisons around, depressed and unmedicated, for parole violation. Reading this, do you think the court succeeded in breaking his spirit? Is he doomed to flame out when he gets out? Is it wrong that his new cd seems made without his input, and is weak compared to his amazing first two? Would you want to get out of prison and find someone made a book out of your throw off writings? Finally, do you like ODB?
posted by zenhues on Mar 28, 2002 - 28 comments

In California, it's now legal for criminals to profit from the sale of stories related to their crimes. Yesterday the CA Supreme Court unanimously struck down the 16 year-old Son of Sam law. The test case involved the movie rights to the story of the man who kidnapped Frank Sinatra, Jr. Victims are angry, but others say that the law represented a direct conflict with free speech, and could have been used to suppress anti-government voices. (more inside)
posted by bingo on Feb 22, 2002 - 15 comments

Wow, talk about your bad luck. Or perhaps proof that heavy pot use(or hot-tubbing) can addle your thinking processes.
posted by jonmc on Feb 6, 2002 - 11 comments

In what seems to be a major turnaround for the state, Texas may not be seeking the death penatly against Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in a bathtub. They're bargaining for a guilty plea; should she take the deal? Or, does she actually deserve death?
posted by Yelling At Nothing on Jan 8, 2002 - 90 comments

German satanic couple held after ritual murder Nothing better to create hits than this.
It has: devil-worshipping, satanic killing, with 66 machete and hammer wounds, "The victim was no longer recognisable", DNA analysis to discover his identity, black oak coffin, upturned crosses, Nazi SS rune stones, Count Dracula's castle, walls were covered in black cloths, "When Satan Lives", July 6, a date supposedly chosen for the satanic symbolism of number six, The shaven-headed, body-pierced Daniel and his pink-haired, leather-clad bride Manuela, occult chat-line....

I'll stop now, but there's more....
posted by nonharmful on Jul 26, 2001 - 11 comments

Let your three pit bulls maul a young child, hide them, go to jail. This would be a lot less appalling if the SF Chron had not chosen to run it underneath the story about "poodle boy".
posted by swell on Jun 20, 2001 - 12 comments

200 years to life for fraud? Crime should be punished, but this seems somewhat harsh when there's murderers, rapists, etc. on the loose
posted by owillis on Apr 28, 2001 - 19 comments

Suspects in Dartmouth Profs' Deaths Held in Indiana -- Two teenagers (allegedly) brutally stabbed two professors. Am I the only one deeply disturbed by all these underaged murderers in recent years? And to resurrect an old debate from my college criminology classes: Are these "killer kids" a product of nature (as in, they're born with something loose) or nurture (as in, lousy parenting)?
posted by shauna on Feb 19, 2001 - 28 comments

if you're planning on doing a bit of burglary, don't forget to steal the web camera as well. or risk international notoriety.
posted by paul on Feb 8, 2001 - 11 comments

Lisl Auman will spend the rest of her life in prison for a crime that she didn't commit. I was made aware of this woman's plight by a brief mention in Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN column. This woman is serving a life sentence for a murder that was commited while she was in police custody. Surely, a travesty such as this cannot stand.
posted by Optamystic on Jan 25, 2001 - 7 comments

"This is a painful reminder of the risks our agents take each and every day." Is this referring to the CIA? The FBI? Nope -- real estate. (via the one true /usr/bin/girl)
posted by jjg on Jan 5, 2001 - 11 comments

Eat french fries at the subway station, go to jail. Martial Law will creep up on us like humid underwear, not like the sudden wedgie-style *BOOMPF* as previously believed.
posted by ethmar on Nov 16, 2000 - 23 comments

Why are people who commit felonies no longer allowed to vote? Are they no longer citizens?
posted by donkeymon on Nov 3, 2000 - 24 comments

Teen Accused in Plot to Kill 'N Sync. Foiled Again! Doh!
posted by Brilliantcrank on Oct 19, 2000 - 20 comments

"Cuba maintains a prison system that is in many respects far more humane than Western propaganda would have the uninformed public believe."
While the New York based Cuban American Democracy Project does not agree with the views expressed by Professor Jill Soffiyah Elijah, the CADP web site lists tons of articles, testimonies and resources about "situation" in Cuba.
posted by tamim on Sep 16, 2000 - 4 comments

Massachusetts father surrenders in hockey rink killing A local story for me, but a scary one at that. The story is that Junta fought the hockey coach after the game because the game was too rough. This was after he had been kicked out by the rink manager. He then proceeded to beat the coach unconscious, in front of the kids, and the coach later died. His plea is self-defense. Yeah, he left the rink, came back, beat up a guy who was 100 pounds lighter, and pleads self-defense.
posted by jmackin on Jul 12, 2000 - 7 comments

Texas Inmate Gary Graham Executed. I always thought that the Governor of a state had the authority to grant a full or conditional pardon or a reprieve if he or she believed that further investigation (?) was required. According to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, said authority is only available "upon the recommendation of the board." Is this common among the States?
posted by chrish on Jun 22, 2000 - 37 comments

What will George do? Gary Graham is on death row and would be president Bush has a decision to make. Only one of six witnesses has identified Graham as the killer and four witnesses say Graham was elsewhere when the crime took place. I'm not saying the death penalty is wrong, but isn't it the greatest injustice of all to be executed for a crime you didn't commit.
posted by jay on Jun 22, 2000 - 26 comments

The laughing bandit strikes! Now this is how crimes should be committed... I gotta say, if you're going to rob a bank, I heartily approve of having fun with it.
posted by Ezrael on May 26, 2000 - 3 comments