3,576 articles
Bonanno crime family
Bonanno crime family: one of New York's five La Cosa Nostra families, founded under Maranzano and led by Joseph Bonanno; marked by the Donnie Brasco infiltration, Pizza Connection trial, and boss Joseph Massino's 2003 cooperation.
Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde were the American outlaw couple Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who committed robbery and murder across the South and Southwest until police killed them in 1934.
Bonnie and Clyde (film)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Arthur Penn's crime drama starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the Depression-era outlaws, written by David Newman and Robert Benton for Warner Bros. Initially panned, it became the landmark New Hollywood film, earning 10 Oscar nominations and 1992 National Film Registry selection.
Bonny Lee Bakley
Bonny Lee Bakley (1956–2001), also called Bonnie Bakley, was the wife of actor Robert Blake, shot dead outside Vitello's in Studio City; Blake was criminally acquitted in 2005 but found liable for $30 million.
Boot (torture)
The boot (boots, bootikin) was a leg-crushing judicial torture device, especially in early modern Scotland, where wedges hammered into a leg sheath broke bones to extract confessions; outlawed in 1707.
Borstal
Borstal: British custodial institution for young offenders aged 16 to 21, first opened 1902 at Borstal, Kent, by Evelyn Ruggles-Brise; statutory under the Prevention of Crime Act 1908; abolished 1982, replaced by youth custody centres.
Boston Strangler
The Boston Strangler, also called the Silk Stocking Murders, killed 13 women around Boston, 1962-1964. Albert DeSalvo confessed but was never charged; 2013 DNA linked him only to final victim Mary Sullivan.
Bounty (reward)
Bounty (reward): a monetary reward offered by governments or private parties for information leading to a fugitive's arrest or conviction. Ranges from $5,000 tip rewards to $25 million State Department offers; FBI Ten Most Wanted standard is up to $1 million.
Boyacá necklace bomb incident
The Boyacá necklace bomb incident (collar bomba) of May 15, 2000: hooded criminals strapped an explosive collar on farmer Elvia Cortés near Chiquinquirá, Colombia; initially blamed on the FARC, the crime was later proven to be common crime, with José Miguel Suárez convicted in 2002.
Boystown (website)
Boystown (BoysTown) was a darknet child sexual abuse material forum active June 2019 to April 2021, with over 400,000 users and one million posts; shut down by Germany's BKA and ZIT in a Europol-coordinated operation, distinct from the Chicago neighborhood and Boys Town charity.
Brabant killers
Brabant killers (Bende van Nijvel, Tueurs du Brabant): unidentified Belgian gang behind 1982–1985 supermarket robberies and murders, 28 dead, about 40 injured; case closed unsolved in June 2024.
Brad Sigmon
Brad Keith Sigmon, American murderer executed by firing squad in South Carolina on March 7, 2025, the first U.S. firing-squad execution in 15 years; killed David and Gladys Larke in 2001 and chose the firing squad over lethal injection and electrocution.
Bradford murders
The Bradford murders were the 2009-2010 killings of three Bradford sex workers, Susan Rushworth, Shelley Armitage, and Suzanne Blamires, by Stephen Griffiths, the self-styled Crossbow Cannibal, a criminology PhD student who received a whole life order in 2010.
Bradley John Murdoch
Bradley John Murdoch (c. 1958–2025), Australian 'Outback Killer', convicted in 2005 of murdering British backpacker Peter Falconio near Barrow Creek, Northern Territory, in 2001; body never found; died in custody 2025.
Brady disclosure
Brady disclosure is the prosecutor's constitutional duty from Brady v. Maryland (1963) to disclose favorable, material evidence, including impeachment (Giglio) material, to criminal defendants, regardless of defense requests.
Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Act, Pub. L. 103-159), a 1993 US federal law named for James Brady, amended the Gun Control Act of 1968 to impose a 5-day handgun waiting period (1994–1998) and create the FBI's NICS background check system covering all firearms.
Brandon Bernard
Brandon Bernard, American federal death-row inmate executed December 10, 2020 at USP Terre Haute for his accomplice role in the 1999 carjacking murders of Todd and Stacie Bagley at Fort Hood, Texas; case noted for juror and prosecutor clemency appeals.
Brazen bull
Brazen bull (bull of Phalaris): legendary ancient Greek execution device, a hollow bronze bull heated by fire, attributed to Perilaos of Athens and the tyrant Phalaris of Akragas; no archaeological evidence, earliest source Pindar, detail from Diodorus Siculus.
Breaking wheel
Breaking wheel (catherine wheel): European torture-execution in which the condemned, tied to a wheel or cross, had limbs broken with an iron bar; first used in Germany, edict of Francis I 1534, abolished in France at the Revolution, used in Germany to 1827.
Brendan Dassey
Brendan Dassey, Wisconsin juvenile whose 2006 confession to the Teresa Halbach murder, featured in Making a Murderer, was ruled involuntary by federal courts but upheld en banc under AEDPA deference.
Brett Peter Cowan
Brett Peter Cowan (born 1969) is the Australian man convicted in 2014 of the 2003 abduction, sexual assault and murder of Queensland schoolboy Daniel Morcombe, caught by an undercover police sting, sentenced to life with a 20-year non-parole period.
Brian Nichols
Brian Gene Nichols, Fulton County Courthouse shooter of March 11, 2005, killed four people including Judge Rowland Barnes during his rape trial, was captured after a 26-hour manhunt, and in 2008 received life without parole.
Brian Reader (criminal)
Brian Reader, called 'The Guv'nor', was an English career criminal and ringleader of the 2015 Hatton Garden vault burglary and Brink's-Mat gold laundering; jailed in 1986 and 2016, he died in 2023 aged 84.
Bribery
Bribery: offering or giving something of value to induce improper official or business conduct; a core form of corruption. Covered via FCPA 1977, OECD Anti-Bribery Convention 1997, UK Bribery Act 2010, and 2024-2025 U.S. enforcement changes.
Bridgewater Four
The Bridgewater Four, Patrick Molloy, James Robinson, and cousins Michael and Vincent Hickey, were wrongly convicted in 1979 of the murder of paperboy Carl Bridgewater at Yew Tree Farm; convictions quashed in 1997 after a forged confession was exposed, murder unsolved.
Briley Brothers
The Briley Brothers were three Richmond, Virginia siblings whose 1979 murder and robbery spree was linked to 11 deaths; Linwood and James were executed in 1984 and 1985 after a record death-row escape.
Brink's-Mat robbery
The Brink's-Mat robbery, 26 November 1983 near Heathrow: six armed men stole 3.5 tonnes of gold worth £26m from the Brink's-Mat depot, Britain's biggest bullion heist, largely laundered and never recovered.
British firms (organised crime)
British firms are self-organized football supporter groups, such as West Ham's Inter City Firm and Leeds' Service Crew, that arranged match-day violence; some provided opportunity structures for organized crime, declining since the 1990s.
Broken windows theory
Broken windows theory, from Wilson and Kelling's 1982 Atlantic essay, holds that visible neighborhood disorder signals absent social control and invites crime; it inspired NYC order-maintenance policing, but meta-analyses find mixed, design-dependent evidence.
Brothel
Brothel: premises where commercial sexual services are provided, often under a licensed operator. Legal status varies by country under four models: prohibition, Nordic end-demand laws, licensing legalization, and decriminalization.