Showing titles in Criminology

If burying a child has a special poignancy, the tragedy at a Catholic elementary school in Chicago more than 50 years ago was an extraordinary moment of grief. One of the deadliest fires in American history, it took the lives of 92 children and three nuns at Our Lady of the Angels School, left many families physically and psychologically scarred for life, and destroyed a close-knit working-class neighborhood.

Michael Ross was a serial killer who raped and murdered eight young women between 1981 and 1984, and several years ago the state of Connecticut put him to death. His crimes were horrific, and he paid the ultimate price for them. When journalist Martha Elliott first heard of Ross, she learned what the world knew of him - that he had been a master at hiding in plain sight.

On an April night in 1989, Jo Ann Parks survived a house fire that claimed the lives of her three small children. Though the fire at first seemed a tragic accident, investigators soon reported finding evidence proving that Parks had sabotaged wiring, set several fires herself, and even barricaded her four-year-old son inside a closet to prevent his escape. Though she insisted she did nothing wrong, Jo Ann Parks received a life sentence without parole based on the power of forensic fire science that convincingly proved her guilt. Now, that evidence is being called into question....

The much anticipated follow-up to the bestseller that exposed the escalation of organised crime in New Zealand.

Este increíble y fascinante relato real es un viaje al imperio empresarial y delictivo de la Camorra, que comienza y termina bajo el signo de las mercancías. Las mercancías «frescas», bajo las formas más variadas (videojuegos, relojes, ropa de marca) llegan al puerto de Nápoles, y para ser almacenadas y escondidas se sacan de los gigantescos contenedores e invaden antiguos palacetes, previamente vaciados por completo.

In 1991, Peggy Adler, author of Trilogy: Three True Stories of Scoundrels and Schemers, was retained by self-proclaimed CIA agent, arms dealer and money launderer, Richard Brenneke, to co-author his autobiography. She soon discovered evidence in his files contradicting claims regarding his presence at October Surprise conspiracy meetings and went on to out Brenneke as a con artist in a February 1992 article in the Village Voice.

Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data-driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost-effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But many of these so-called reforms actually widen the net, weaving in new strands of punishment and control, and bringing new populations, who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment, under physical control by the state.

Linda Scarpa had the best toys, the nicest clothes, and a close-knit family. Yet her childhood was far from idyllic. Classmates avoided her; boys wouldn't date her. Eventually she learned why: They were afraid of her father. A made man in the Colombo crime family, Gregory Scarpa, Sr., was a stone-cold killer nicknamed the "Grim Reaper." Unlike most tight-lipped mobsters, Scarpa talked business - and murder - in front of his kids.

Speaking for the first time, Whitus gives the unvarnished truth of many major SWAT operations. Now retired, he opens up about his time behind the shield. Bullet Riddled is the full unabridged disclosure of what happened during his storied career; including the brutal morning of the Columbine Massacre. More than just a retelling, Bullet Riddled is an in-depth look at the day-to-day of SWAT and focuses on the men and women who inherit so much pain to keep us safe.

The trial of 25-year-old Casey Anthony for the death of her daughter, Caylee, was the most sensational case in America since O.J. Simpson’s. After being acquitted in July 2011, Ms. Anthony instantly became one of the most infamous women in the world. Dr. Keith Ablow distills tens of thousands of pages of documents he has obtained, his behind-the-camera, one-on one interviews, and his decades of experience in the world of forensic psychiatry to make sense of this troubled young woman.

Step inside the death chamber and behind the walls of Ohio’s death row. Bill Kimberlin, PsyD, invites the listener on an extensive and unbiased journey inside Ohio’s death row in Watch Me Die: Last Words from Death Row. You will see how these inmates think as Kimberlin not only spends time interviewing them, but also eats meals with them and, in some cases, is the last person to speak with them before they are executed.

Lee Johnson was a man with simple dreams. He never imagined that he would become the face of a David-and-Goliath showdown against one of the world's most powerful corporate giants. But a workplace accident left Lee doused in a toxic chemical and facing a deadly cancer that turned his life upside down. In 2018, the world watched as Lee was thrust to the forefront of one the most dramatic legal battles in recent history. The Monsanto Papers takes listeners behind the scenes of a grueling legal battle, pulling back the curtain on the frailties of the American court system.

At 15, Victor Rios found himself a human target - flat on his ass amid a hail of shotgun fire, desperate for money and a place on the street. Faced with the choice of escalating a drug turf war or eking out a living elsewhere, he turned to a teacher, who mentored him and helped him find a job at an auto shop. That job would alter the course of his whole life - putting him on the road to college and eventually a PhD.

The Black Mafia is one of the bloodiest crime syndicates in modern US history. From its roots in Philadelphia's ghettos in the 1960s, it grew from a rabble of street toughs to a disciplined, ruthless organization based on fear and intimidation. Known in its "legitimate" guise as Black Brothers Inc, it held regular meetings, appointed investigators, treasurers and enforcers, and controlled drug dealing, loan-sharking, numbers rackets, armed robbery, and extortion.

Courtroom 302 is the fascinating story of one year in Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the busiest felony courthouse in the country. Here we see the system through the eyes of the men and women who experience it, not only in the courtroom but in the lockup, the jury room, the judge's chambers, the spectators' gallery. From the daily grind of the court to the highest-profile case of the year, Steve Bogira's masterful investigation raises fundamental issues of race, civil rights, and justice in America.

California’s fire season gets hotter, longer, and more extreme every year - fire season is now year-round. Of the thousands of firefighters who battle California’s blazes every year, roughly 30 percent of the on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. Approximately 200 of those firefighters are women serving on all-female crews. In Breathing Fire, Jaime Lowe expands on her revelatory work for The New York Times Magazine.

Not everyone can become a tyrant. It requires a particular confluence of events to gain absolute control over entire nations. First, you must be born with the potential to develop brutal personality traits. Second, your predisposition to antisocial behavior must be developed and strengthened during childhood. Finally, you must come of age when the political system of your country is unstable.

The United States has the largest criminal justice system in the world, with approximately seven million adults and juveniles in jail, prison, or community custody. Because convicts spend enough time in prison to disrupt their connections to their families and their communities, they are generally not prepared for the difficult and often life-threatening process of reentry into the outside world.

The definitive book on the hunt to find the most ruthless serial killer in Los Angeles' history, told by the fearless reporter who broke the story. In 2008, Christine Pelisek broke the story of a terrifying serial killer who went unchecked in Los Angeles for decades, killing the most vulnerable women in one South Central neighborhood.

Between them, the three men in the fearsome Pierrepoint dynasty executed over 800 people during a career spanning more than half a century. Henry, his brother Thomas, and his son Albert, dispatched some of the most infamous criminals of the 20th century, and in the process earned a public notoriety that followed them throughout their eventful lives.