3,576 articles
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is imprisonment alone for 22 or more hours daily without meaningful human contact. Also called restrictive housing; defined by the Mandela Rules, which prohibit indefinite or prolonged (over 15-day) isolation, it originated in Philadelphia's Pennsylvania System and is linked to psychological harm and suicide.
Solntsevskaya Bratva (Солнцевская братва)
The Solntsevskaya Bratva, or Solntsevo Brotherhood, is a Russian organized crime group formed in the 1980s in Moscow's Solntsevo district, led by Sergei Mikhailov and Viktor Averin.
Somerton Man
Somerton Man (Tamám Shud case): man found dead on Somerton Beach, Adelaide, 1 December 1948. Identified in 2022 by DNA as Carl "Charles" Webb; Australian authorities have not confirmed it, and cause of death remains undetermined.
Son of Sam law
Son of Sam laws are statutes, first New York Executive Law § 632-a (1977), that escrow a criminal's income from works describing the crime for victims; struck down as content-based in Simon & Schuster v. Crime Victims Board (1991).
Sonny Corleone
Santino "Sonny" Corleone, eldest son and acting boss in Puzo's The Godfather and Coppola's 1972 film, played by James Caan; hotheaded heir killed at the Jones Beach Causeway tollbooth.
Sonny Franzese
John "Sonny" Franzese was an American mobster who served as underboss of New York's Colombo crime family, active into his 90s and dying in 2020 at 103.
Sonora Cartel
Sonora Cartel: 1990s Mexican drug trafficking organization identified with Rafael Caro Quintero in Sonora state; its successor groups, the Caborca Cartel and Nuevo Cártel Independiente de Sonora, now fight Los Chapitos for the border desert.
South African criminal law
South African criminal law: uncodified Roman-Dutch common law crimes (murder, robbery, rape) with English-influenced procedure under the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977, six liability elements, no juries since 1969, all subject to the 1996 Constitution.
South African farm attacks
South African farm attacks, or plaasmoorde, are violent crimes against farmers, farmworkers, and visitors on South African farms; the official motive finding is overwhelmingly criminal rather than political.
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility
The Southern Ohio Correctional Facility is a maximum-security men's prison in Lucasville, Ohio, opened in 1972 to replace the Ohio Penitentiary and site of the 1993 Lucasville riot.
Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center
Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center (SBCC) is a maximum-security state prison for men in Lancaster, Massachusetts, opened in 1998 and run by the Massachusetts Department of Correction.
Soviet detective fiction
Soviet detective fiction is crime literature produced in the USSR from the 1920s to the 1980s, centered on the militsiya procedural about ordinary Soviet police rather than lone detectives.
Spandau Prison
Spandau Prison, the Allied war-crimes prison in West Berlin, held the seven Nuremberg convicts from 1947 under four-power administration; Rudolf Hess, its last inmate, died there in 1987 and the prison was demolished.
Spanking
Spanking is a form of corporal punishment in which the hand is used to slap a child on the buttocks, typically by parents for discipline.
Special Panels for Serious Crimes (East Timor)
Special Panels for Serious Crimes: hybrid UNTAET panels at Dili District Court (2000–2005) that tried 1999 East Timor violence cases with one Timorese and two international judges.
Speed Freak Killers
Speed Freak Killers: Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog, meth-fueled serial killer duo of San Joaquin County, California, 1980s-1990s; convicted of four murders, suspected of up to 72; Herzog died by suicide in 2012, Shermantine died in prison in 2026.
Spree killer
Spree killer: a multiple-homicide offender who kills several victims at two or more locations in a short, continuous episode without a cooling-off period; FBI dropped the category in 2005, but researchers such as Safarik and Ramsland still classify spree killers separately from serial and mass murderers.
Springfield Three
Springfield Three: Sherrill Levitt, Suzanne Streeter, and Stacy McCall, who vanished overnight June 6–7, 1992, from Levitt's home at 1717 East Delmar Street, Springfield, Missouri. Unsolved; no remains found, no charges, Robert Craig Cox the named person of interest.
Stabbing
Stabbing: assault or homicide with a pointed or bladed weapon, counted in UK statistics as knife-enabled or sharp-instrument offences; 54,587 recorded offences in YE Dec 2024, 41% of homicides, concentrated in London.
Stabbing of George Harrison
The stabbing of George Harrison: on 30 December 1999 Michael Abram, a schizophrenic man from Liverpool, broke into Friar Park and stabbed the former Beatle, puncturing a lung; he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 2000 and detained, then released in 2002.
Stacey Castor
Stacey Ruth Castor, the New York "Black Widow," convicted in 2009 of antifreeze-poisoning her second husband David Castor and attempting to murder daughter Ashley Wallace; sentenced to 51 1/3 years to life, died in prison 2016.
Stacey Humphreys
Stacey Ian Humphreys is a Georgia death row inmate convicted of the 2003 murders of real estate agents Cyndi Williams and Lori Brown in Cobb County. Scheduled executions in December 2025 and September 2026 were both stayed over clemency board conflicts, juror misconduct claims, and the Survivor Justice Act.
Stalking
Stalking: a pattern of repeated harassing or threatening conduct, including following, surveillance, unwanted contact, and GPS or spyware tracking, that causes fear or substantial emotional distress; affects about 1 in 5 US women and 1 in 10 men, criminalized in all 50 states.
Stand-your-ground law
Stand-your-ground law: US self-defense statute removing the duty to retreat outside the home, distinct from castle doctrine. Utah 1994 first; Florida 2005 model via ALEC; 35 states by 2025; associated with 8-11% firearm homicide increases.
Stanfield Organization
Fictional West Baltimore drug organization in The Wire, led by Marlo Stanfield with Chris Partlow and Monk Metcalf; it supplanted the Barksdale Organization in 2004 and dissolved by 2008.
Stanley Theodore Adams
Stanley Theodore Adams (born 1966) is an American serial killer from Trumbull County, Ohio, convicted of the 1999 murders of Roslyn Taylor, Esther Cook, and Ashley Cook; he was sentenced to death in 2001 and remains on Ohio death row, his execution rescheduled to February 16, 2028.
Stanley Williams
Stanley Tookie Williams (1953–2005), Los Angeles gang co-founder with Raymond Washington of the Crips in 1971, convicted of four 1979 murders, later anti-gang author on death row, executed at San Quentin December 13, 2005 after clemency denial.
Starred Up
Starred Up (2013) is a British prison drama directed by David Mackenzie, written by ex-prison therapist Jonathan Asser, starring Jack O'Connell, Ben Mendelsohn, and Rupert Friend; 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.
State of Idaho v. Robert Dean Hall
State of Idaho v. Robert Dean Hall, 387 P.3d 81 (Idaho 2016): Idaho Supreme Court decision affirming Robert Dean Hall's second-degree murder conviction for the 2011 shooting of Emmett Corrigan and upholding ICJI 1517 self-defense jury instructions over a justifiable-homicide instruction request.
Stateville Correctional Center
Stateville Correctional Center, opened March 1925 in Crest Hill, Illinois, is a maximum-security men's prison known for its panopticon-style roundhouse, the Northern Reception and Classification Center, and its 2024 closure and $900 million replacement plan.