3,576 articles
Click fraud
Click fraud, also called click spam, is the deceptive clicking of pay-per-click ads, either to inflate a publisher's ad revenue or to exhaust a competitor's advertising budget.
Clifford Olson
Clifford Robert Olson Jr., known as the Beast of British Columbia, was a Canadian serial killer who murdered 11 children in British Columbia in 1980 and 1981.
Clinton Correctional Facility
Clinton Correctional Facility (Clinton Prison), maximum-security men's prison in Dannemora, New York, founded 1845 as an iron-mining prison; largest and third oldest DOCCS facility, nicknamed Little Siberia, site of the 2015 Matt-Sweat escape.
Clutter family murders
Clutter family murders: November 15, 1959 quadruple homicide of Herbert Clutter's family in Holcomb, Kansas, by ex-convicts Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, basis of Capote's In Cold Blood.
Cochise County Cowboys
The Cochise County Cowboys were loosely organized outlaws active in Pima and Cochise County, Arizona Territory, in the 1880s, known for cattle theft and their feud with the Earp brothers.
Code Noir
The Code Noir is the March 1685 edict of Louis XIV, drafted under Colbert, that regulated slavery in the French Caribbean colonies; also edicts of 1723-1724 for Réunion, Mauritius, and Louisiana. It classified enslaved people as movable property and was formally repealed only in 2026.
Code of Criminal Procedure (India)
The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC), Act No. 2 of 1974, was India's principal criminal procedure statute, in force from 1 April 1974 until repealed by the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, effective 1 July 2024.
Code of Hammurabi
The Code of Hammurabi, or Laws of Hammurabi, is a Babylonian law code of 282 judgments from about 1750 BCE, known for "an eye for an eye."
Code of Vakhtang VI
The Code of Vakhtang VI (ვახტანგ VI-ის სამართლის წიგნი) is a collection of Georgian laws compiled in 1705–08, combining old Georgian and foreign law books with Vakhtang's own new law.
Code Rural (Haiti)
The Code Rural was an 1826 Haitian law issued under President Jean-Pierre Boyer that required rural cultivators to contract themselves to landowners and punished refusal to work as vagabondage.
Cody Legebokoff
Cody Alan Legebokoff, Canadian serial killer convicted in 2014 of four first-degree murders near Prince George, B.C. (Stuchenko, Maas, Montgomery, Leslie); arrested 2010 after RCMP traffic stop; life sentence, appeals dismissed.
Cold case
Cold case: an unsolved criminal investigation, typically homicide or missing/unidentified person, inactive after leads are exhausted. Covers definitions, US/UK cold case units, clearance statistics, DNA and genetic genealogy advances, and outcomes.
Colin "Caesar" Campbell
Colin "Caesar" Campbell (1946–2021), Australian outlaw biker, bareknuckle fighter, and author; sergeant-at-arms of the Comancheros, founding sergeant-at-arms of the Bandidos Australia, wounded at the 1984 Milperra Massacre, memoirist of Enforcer.
Colin Howell
Colin Howell, Northern Irish dentist from Castlerock, murdered his wife Lesley Howell and RUC constable Trevor Buchanan in May 1991, staging a suicide pact; confessed 2009, pleaded guilty 2010, minimum 20-year term.
Colin Ireland
Colin Ireland, the "Gay Slayer" (1954–2012), British serial killer who murdered five gay men in London in 1993 after a New Year's resolution, luring victims from the Coleherne pub; caught by a fingerprint and CCTV, he confessed and died in prison.
Colin Pitchfork
Colin Pitchfork, English baker and double child murderer, first person in the world convicted of murder using DNA profiling; killed Lynda Mann (1983) and Dawn Ashworth (1986) in Leicestershire; caught by mass DNA screening; parole denied October 2025.
Collective punishment
Collective punishment: penalizing a group for acts of one or a few members. Prohibited under Geneva Conventions IV Article 33 and III Article 87, customary IHL; a war crime outside the Rome Statute; no human rights treaty ban.
Colombo crime family
The Colombo crime family, originally the Profaci family, is one of New York's five Mafia families, founded by Joseph Profaci, renamed under boss Joe Colombo in 1963, marked by three internal wars, and led for decades by imprisoned Carmine Persico.
Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting
Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting: Robert Lewis Dear Jr.'s November 27, 2015 attack on a Colorado Springs abortion clinic killed three and wounded nine; he was never tried and died in federal custody in 2025.
Colton Harris Moore
Colton Harris Moore, the Barefoot Bandit, American fugitive from Camano Island, Washington; escaped juvenile custody April 2008, suspected of nearly 100 thefts including stolen planes he flew without training, captured in the Bahamas July 2010, sentenced 2012.
Columbia Correctional Institution (Wisconsin)
Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI), a maximum-security Wisconsin state prison for adult male felons in Portage, opened May 14, 1986 on 110 acres with ten 50-cell units and a 150-bed minimum unit.
Columbine effect
The Columbine effect: how the 1999 Columbine High School massacre (13 killed) became a blueprint for later school shooters, spawned Columbiner and True Crime online subcultures, and drove lockdown drills and school security changes.
Comando Vermelho
Comando Vermelho (Red Command, CV), Brazil's oldest criminal organization, founded in 1979 in the Ilha Grande Cândido Mendes prison through contact between common and political prisoners; based in Rio de Janeiro, with about 30,000 members, network structure, and rivalry with the PCC.
Common scold
Common scold (communis rixatrix): an English common law nuisance offence against habitual scolding women, punished by the cucking or ducking stool; abolished in England and Wales in 1967 but prosecuted in the US until 1972.
Community crime prevention
Community crime prevention is the organized involvement of residents, in partnership with police or local organizations, in activities to reduce neighborhood crime, including neighborhood watch schemes and citizen patrols.
Community policing
Community policing: a philosophy in which police build partnerships with residents and use problem-solving to address crime, disorder, and fear. Evidence shows gains in satisfaction and legitimacy but limited crime effects; problem-oriented variants reduce crime more.
Community service
Community service, also known as community payback, is unpaid work for the community imposed as a criminal penalty, typically instead of a prison sentence; it began in 1960s California.
Commutation (law)
Commutation (law): executive clemency reducing a criminal sentence, such as death to life imprisonment, without forgiving the offense or erasing the conviction; distinct from pardon and reprieve, granted by presidents and governors.
Comparative criminal justice systems
Comparative criminal justice systems is the study of how countries' legal systems differ in investigation, trial, and punishment, from inquisitorial and adversarial models to incarceration rates that vary sixteen-fold.
Comparing crime across countries
Comparing crime across countries means using national statistics and victimisation surveys to compare crime and safety between nations, an approach criminologists consider reliable mainly for intentional homicide because laws and recording practices differ.