3,576 articles
Utah v. Lafferty
Utah v. Lafferty, the Ron and Dan Lafferty case, was a 1988 Utah Supreme Court decision affirming Ron Lafferty's death sentence for two 1984 murders.
Uxoricide
Uxoricide is the killing of a wife by her husband or partner, from Latin uxor + -cide; contrasted with mariticide. Covers its etymology, legal history, and global prevalence and risk-factor research.
Uzair Baloch
Uzair Jan Baloch, Lyari gang war kingpin and chief of the outlawed Peoples Amn Committee in Karachi; convicted by military court in 2020 to 12 years for spying for Iranian intelligence; acquitted in many civilian cases.
V-coding
V-coding is US prison slang for housing incarcerated trans women in cells with aggressive male inmates to pacify or reward them, exposing the trans women to sexual assault; documented in legal reports and survivor testimony.
Vadim Krasikov (Вадим Николаевич Красиков)
Vadim Krasikov, alias Vadim Sokolov, Russian FSB operative convicted in Germany of the 2019 Tiergarten murder of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili; sentenced to life in 2021, freed in the August 2024 prisoner swap.
Vagrancy
Vagrancy: a legal offense criminalizing idleness, homelessness, or wandering without visible means of support. Traced to England's 1349 Statute of Labourers; struck down as vague in Papachristou (1972); revived in modern sleeping/camping ordinances upheld in Grants Pass v. Johnson (2024).
Van Breda murders
Van Breda murders: the 27 January 2015 axe killings of Martin, Teresa, and Rudi van Breda at De Zalze estate, Stellenbosch; brother Henri van Breda was convicted in 2018 and sentenced to three life terms.
Vance Boelter
Vance Luther Boelter (born 1967), Green Isle, Minnesota man who, disguised as a police officer, killed Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband and shot Sen. John Hoffman's family on June 14, 2025; pleaded guilty in 2026 and received two life sentences plus 40 years.
Vandalism
Vandalism, also called criminal mischief or malicious mischief, is the willful damage or defacement of another's property. Covers legal elements, misdemeanor-felony grading ($250-$5,000 thresholds), Cohen's motivation typology, and prevention.
Varadarajan Mudaliar (வரதராஜன் முதலியார்)
Varadarajan Mudaliar (வரதராஜன் முதலியார்), aka Vardhabhai (1926–1988), a Tuticorin-born Tamil who became Bombay's first underworld don through bootlegging and matka, part of the Karim Lala–Haji Mastan trio; inspiration for Nayakan.
Vasily Blokhin (Василий Михайлович Блохин)
Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin (Василий Михайлович Блохин), 1895–1955, Soviet NKVD Major General and chief executioner under Stalin; personally shot about 7,000 Polish officers at Kalinin in 1940 and tens of thousands overall.
Veerappan
Veerappan (Koose Munisamy Veerappan), Indian forest brigand of the Karnataka–Tamil Nadu border forests; sandalwood smuggler, elephant poacher, kidnapper of actor Rajkumar in 2000; killed by the STF in October 2004.
Velma Barfield
Velma Barfield (Margie Velma Barfield, née Bullard, 1932–1984), North Carolina arsenic poisoner who confessed to four murders, was convicted of killing Stuart Taylor, and became the first woman executed in the US since 1962 and the first by lethal injection.
Vera Institute of Justice
Vera Institute of Justice (Vera Foundation): American nonprofit founded 1961 by Herb Sturz and Louis Schweitzer; Manhattan Bail Project led to Bail Reform Act of 1966; works to end mass incarceration and represent immigrants facing deportation.
Verbal abuse
Verbal abuse is language used to harm, demean, intimidate, or control another person, a form of psychological aggression in intimate relationships, families, and workplaces; prevalence estimates vary widely (18% to 92% for childhood verbal abuse) due to inconsistent definitions and measures.
Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center
Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center (VCBC), "The Boat," an 800-bed five-story jail barge moored off Hunts Point, South Bronx, part of the Rikers Island complex; built at Avondale shipyard, arrived 1992, last US prison ship, closed 2023.
Vice
Vice (crime): consensual immorality offenses such as gambling, prostitution, narcotics, alcohol, and obscenity; also called victimless crimes, policed by vice squads and increasingly replaced by licensing and sin-tax regulation.
Vicente Carrillo Fuentes
Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, alias El Viceroy (born 1962), Mexican drug trafficker who led the Juárez Cartel from 1997 after his brother Amado's death until his 2014 arrest; sentenced in Mexico to 28 years and extradited to the United States in February 2025.
Vicente Zambada Niebla
Vicente Zambada Niebla, alias El Vicentillo, son of Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael El Mayo Zambada, was the cartel's logistics coordinator, arrested in 2009, extradited 2010, pleaded guilty in Chicago in 2013, and became a key cooperating witness against El Chapo, receiving a 15-year sentence in 2019 and release in 2021.
Victim blaming
Victim blaming, also called blaming the victim, is the tendency to hold victims of negative events responsible for those outcomes. Rooted in victim precipitation theory, studied mainly in sexual assault, driven by rape myths, just world belief, and defensive attribution.
Victim impact statement
Victim impact statement (VIS): a written or oral statement by a crime victim describing emotional, physical, and financial harm, considered at sentencing in US, Canadian, UK, and Australian courts; effect on sentences is empirically inconclusive.
Victimisation
Victimisation (victimization) is the experience of being harmed by crime and the study object of victimology. Covers victimology's postwar origins, victimization surveys and the hidden figure of crime, repeat victimization, and the victims' rights movement.
Victimization survey
Victimization survey: population survey asking people about crimes they experienced in a period, whether or not reported to police. Includes the US NCVS (1972, ~240,000 respondents), ICVS, dark figure measurement, and comparison with police-recorded crime data.
Victimology
Victimology is the scientific study of crime victims and victimization, coined by Benjamin Mendelsohn in 1947 and developed by Hans von Hentig; early victim-precipitation work drew feminist criticism and shaped critical victimology and victimization surveys.
Victims' rights movement
Victims' rights movement: US social and legal reform movement from the 1960s-1970s giving crime victims rights, services, and a voice in criminal proceedings, via compensation programs, VOCA, state constitutional amendments, Marsy's Law, and victim impact statements.
Victor Amuso
Victor (Vittorio) "Vic" Amuso, also known as "Jesse", boss of the Lucchese crime family from late 1986, led it with Anthony Casso, was captured in Scranton in 1991, and is serving life sentences for RICO racketeering and murder.
Victor Lustig
Victor Lustig, self-styled "Count," was a con man born (claimed) 1890 in Hostinné, Bohemia, who sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap twice in 1925, ran the money-box and Al Capone cons, and died on Alcatraz in 1947.
Víctor Manuel Gerena
Víctor Manuel Gerena, born 1958 in New York, is the Wells Fargo guard who took over $7 million from the West Hartford, Connecticut depot on September 12, 1983 for Los Macheteros, then vanished; he holds the longest FBI Ten Most Wanted tenure, 32 years.
Victor Martinez Hernandez
Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, Salvadoran national, convicted 2025 of the 2023 rape and murder of Rachel Morin on Maryland's Ma & Pa Trail; identified by DNA genealogy, arrested in Tulsa, sentenced to life plus 40 years.
Victoria Cilliers
Victoria Cilliers, British physiotherapist and skydiving instructor, survived her husband Emile Cilliers' 2015 sabotage of her main and reserve parachutes at Netheravon; he received a life sentence, minimum 18 years, in 2018.