Showing titles in Criminology

From ballistics and blood splatter patterns to DNA analysis and voice printing, RJ Parker explores the highly complex world of investigative forensic sciences. Intended as an introductory guide and reference to forensic techniques for frontline police officers, criminal attorneys, journalists, crime authors, and just interested listeners, this encyclopedic audiobook is a must-listen for any true-crime aficionado.

Mobster Al "Scarface" Capone, "Machine Gun" Kelly, Robert Stroud, aka the Birdman: only the most violent, desperate criminals went to Alcatraz Island, called "The Rock" and known for its harsh conditions. This gripping true crime classic, originally written in 1963 and newly reissued, tells the story of life on The Rock and of 14 ingenious escape attempts by the prisoners.

"Oggi le mafie non sparano, ma il loro potere non è mai stato così forte." In questo nuovo saggio Nicola Gratteri e Antonio Nicaso ci riportano nel cuore oscuro della criminalità organizzata, svelandone i legami nascosti con i mercati finanziari e la politica e di - mostrando come essi siano ormai diventati, di fatto, "una cosa sola". Abbandonata la plateale violenza del passato, le mafie oggi sono vere e proprie imprese globali, capaci di gestire transazioni economiche complesse, nascondere i loro guadagni attraverso il riciclaggio e collaborare con grandi reti di criminalità internazionale.

The man who answered the door was naked and covered with blood. His name was Larry Singleton and police in Tampa, Florida, soon discovered he had brutally murdered prostitute Roxanne Hayes and much worse. He was the mad chopper, who years before had cut off the arms off 15-year-old Mary Vincent outside Modesto, California. Mary survived and testified against him at his trial for killing Hayes.

From a rare and deadly amniotic avalanche to a victim of roasted peanuts ... The bestselling author of The Cause of Death and The Quick and the Dead returns with more stranger-than-fiction stories of death, disease and murder—as well as new perspectives on high-profile cases, including the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope, the trial of Mark Lundy, and the ill-fated journey of Ansett Flight 703.

No Centro Hospitalar Psiquiátrico de Barbacena, conhecido apenas por Colônia, ocorreu uma das maiores barbáries da história do Brasil. O centro recebia diariamente, além de pacientes com diagnóstico de doença mental, homossexuais, prostitutas, epiléticos, mães solteiras, meninas problemáticas, mulheres engravidadas pelos patrões, moças que haviam perdido a virgindade antes do casamento, mendigos, alcoólatras, melancólicos, tímidos e todo tipo de gente considerada fora dos padrões sociais.

Ranging from the Vikings and Wako pirates in the Middle Ages to modern day Somali pirates, Lehr delves deep into what motivates pirates and how they operate. He also illuminates the state's role in the development of piracy throughout history: from privateers sanctioned by Queen Elizabeth to pirates operating off the coast of Africa taking the law into their own hands. After exploring the structural failures which create fertile ground for pirate activities, Lehr evaluates the success of counter-piracy efforts - and the reasons behind its failures.

The Skeleton Crew provides an entree into the gritty and tumultuous world of Sherlock Holmes-wannabes who race to beat out law enforcement-and one another - at matching missing persons with unidentified remains. In America today, upwards of forty thousand people are dead and unaccounted for. These murder, suicide, and accident victims, separated from their names, are being adopted by the bizarre online world of amateur sleuths.

Should Johnny Cash have been charged with murder after he sang, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die”? Few would seriously subscribe to this notion of justice. Yet in 2001, a rapper named Mac whose music had gained national recognition was convicted of manslaughter after the prosecutor quoted liberally from his album Shell Shocked. Mac was sentenced to 30 years in prison, where he remains. And his case is just one of many nationwide. Rap on Trial places this disturbing practice in the context of hip-hop history and exposes what’s at stake.

Over the course of five years, Elizabeth Greenwood followed the ups and downs of five couples who met during incarceration. In Love Lockdown, she pulls back the curtain on the lives of the husbands and wives supporting some of the 2.3 million people in prisons around the United States. In the vein of Modern Love, this book shines a light on how these relationships reflect the desire and delusion we all experience in our romantic pairings.

Keri Blakinger always lived life at full throttle. Growing up, that meant throwing herself into competitive figure skating with an all-consuming passion that led her to nationals. But when her skating career suddenly fell apart, that meant diving into self-destruction with the intensity she once saved for the ice. For the next nine years, Keri ricocheted from one dark place to the next: living on the streets, selling drugs and sex, and shooting up between classes all while trying to hold herself together enough to finish her degree at Cornell.

A nightmare from a thousand B-movies: A horrible crime is committed in your neighborhood, and the police knock on your door. A witness swears you are the perpetrator; you have no alibi, and no one believes your declarations of innocence. You are convicted, sentenced to hard time in a maximum-security prison, or even death row. Actual Innocence examines this real-life nightmare.

Through a rich discussion of literature and case studies, he shows that there are compelling reasons to think that the police's widespread use of proactive deception and dishonesty is inconsistent with fundamental norms of political morality—especially norms regarding fraud and the rule of law. Although there are times and places for dishonesty and deception in policing, Hunt evocatively illustrates why those times and places should be much more limited than current practices suggest.

Weaving together Garth's raw and intimate account of his addiction with the broader issues and history surrounding drug treatment and policy, Crackdown offers a forceful challenge to the received wisdom about how best to treat addiction and keep drug users alive and safe.

In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier’s death, the Roman Catholic nun came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. She also came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job it was to execute - men who often harbored doubts about the rightness of what they were doing.

Listen to this true crime anthology and learn about 12 of the most shocking true crime cases in modern history. You will be glued to your device as you hear about high profile true crime murder cases, such as the murder of Laci Peterson, and the murder trial of actor Robert Blake, while learning about some lesser-known yet equally notorious murder trials. You will follow criminal investigations into cold murder cases that were once thought to be unsolvable.

Former Marine sergeant and judo instructor Roland Pitre Jr. claimed it was all an elaborate plan to win back his wife's love - it wasn't supposed to end with her dead body in the trunk of a car. Nearly twenty years later, he acknowledged that he had hired someone to kill his estranged wife in 1988, though his alleged excuse for why a monstrous "mistake" happened is as shocking and convoluted as the crime itself. Eventually, he was charged with first-degree murder in the long-unsolved death of Cheryl Pitre, after a mysterious witness betrayed Pitre to save his own skin.

Billy Wayne Sinclair was only 21 when he heard the Louisiana judge pronounce these words: "I hereby sentence you to death in the electric chair." It was the culmination of a botched holdup committed the year before in which Billy had accidentally shot and killed a man. Billy spent the next 40 years in Angola Prison - one of the country’s worst - six of those years on death row. When in 1972 the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty as arbitrary and capricious, Billy was re-sentenced to life without parole.

When former FBI Agent Kathy Stearman read in The New York Times that 16 women were suing the FBI for discrimination at the training academy, she was surprised to see the women come forward - no one ever had before - but the truth behind their accusations resonated. After a 26-year career in the Bureau, culminating in becoming FBI Legal Attaché, the most senior FBI representative in a foreign office, she knew from personal experience that this type of behavior had been prevalent for decades.

A tragic death, a murder trial and a 170-year-old mystery - but what really happened? Shortly after Maria Kirwan died in a lonely inlet on Ireland’s Eye, it was decided that she had drowned accidentally during a day spent with her husband on the picturesque island. This inquest verdict appeared to conclude the melancholy events that consumed the fishing village of Howth, Co Dublin, in September 1852.