3,576 articles
Crushing (execution)
Crushing (execution), or pressing to death, is a capital punishment in English law. It involved placing weights on the body of a felon who refused to plead.
Crystal Mangum
Crystal Gail Mangum falsely accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape in 2006; the case collapsed, prosecutor Nifong was disbarred, she was convicted of murder in 2013, recanted in 2024, and was released in 2026.
CSI (franchise)
CSI franchise: American forensic crime drama franchise begun with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS, 2000-2015, 337 episodes), creator Anthony Zuiker; five series including Miami, NY, Cyber, and Vegas (2021-2024); source of the CSI effect debate.
CSI: Vegas
CSI: Vegas (2021-2024) is an American CBS crime drama, the sequel to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, created by Jason Tracey; three seasons, 41 episodes, starring Petersen, Fox, Helgenberger and Paula Newsome, canceled April 2024.
Culpability
Culpability is legal responsibility for a criminal act; in criminal law it is the mens rea, or guilty state of mind, prosecutors must prove for a conviction.
Culpable homicide
Culpable homicide, also called culpable homicide not amounting to murder, is blameworthy killing short of murder in Scots, South African, Indian, New Zealand, and Zimbabwean law; in Canada it is the umbrella for murder, manslaughter, and infanticide.
Cultural genocide
Cultural genocide is the deliberate destruction of a group's culture, language, religion, and heritage. Coined within Lemkin's genocide concept, it was excluded from the 1948 Genocide Convention and remains a scholarly and political term.
Culture of fear
Culture of fear: a socially reinforced climate of pervasive apprehension about threats, central to Glassner's and Furedi's theses and fear-of-crime research on media, politics, and measurement.
Curb stomp
Curb stomp (also "bite the curb"): a violent assault forcing a victim's mouth onto a curb edge and stomping the head. Popularized by the 1998 film American History X; biomechanical studies report stomping forces of thousands of newtons causing skull fractures.
Curfew
Curfew: a regulation barring people from public places at set hours, from Old French couvre-feu ("cover fire"). Covers youth, daytime, emergency, and driving curfews, U.S. adoption since 1880, systematic reviews finding juvenile curfews ineffective at reducing crime, racial enforcement disparities, and legal challenges.
Curtis Flowers
Curtis Flowers, also known as Curtis Giovanni Flowers, is an American man tried six times for the 1996 murders of four Tardy Furniture employees in Winona, Mississippi.
Curtis Warren
Curtis Warren (born 1963, Liverpool; "Cocky") is a British drug trafficker, once Interpol's most wanted and the only trafficker on the Sunday Times Rich List, convicted in the Netherlands (1997) and Jersey (2009) and ordered to pay £198m.
CVLT (organization)
CVLT (pronounced "cult") was a Discord-based neo-Nazi, nihilistic child exploitation group and precursor to 764 within The Com; leaders including Rohan Rane and Kaleb Merritt were prosecuted in France and the United States.
Cybercrime
Cybercrime: criminal activity committed against or by means of computers and ICT; no international definition exists. Divided into cyber-dependent and cyber-enabled offences plus online child sexual exploitation; governed internationally by the 2001 Budapest Convention.
Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012
Republic Act 10175, the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, is the Philippine law signed September 12, 2012 defining cybercrime offenses including cyber libel, data preservation duties, and the DOJ Office of Cybercrime; partly voided in Disini v. Secretary of Justice (2014).
Cyberstalking
Cyberstalking is stalking conducted through information technology such as email, social media, GPS tracking, and monitoring software. Covered by 18 U.S.C. § 2261A, it affected an estimated 936,310 US residents age 16+ in 2019, with 412 federal prosecutions filed 2010-2020.
Cycle of abuse
Cycle of abuse, or cycle of violence: Lenore Walker's 1979 three-phase model (tension building, acute battering, reconciliation) and the intergenerational transmission of intimate partner violence, whose theory-informed evidence shows inconsistencies.
Cyntoia Brown
Cyntoia Brown (Cyntoia Brown-Long), born 1988, American advocate sentenced at 16 to life in prison for the 2004 killing of Johnny Allen in Nashville; granted clemency by Governor Bill Haslam in 2019 and released after 15 years.
D-Company
D-Company (D Company, D-Gang) is the transnational crime syndicate founded by Dawood Ibrahim in 1970s Mumbai, now based in Pakistan, known for narcotics, extortion, the 1993 Bombay bombings, ISI ties, and U.S. Kingpin Act sanctions.
D.C. sniper attacks
D.C. sniper attacks (Beltway sniper attacks): October 2002 shootings in which John Allen Muhammad, 41, and Lee Boyd Malvo, 17, killed 10 and wounded 3 around Washington, D.C. using a Bushmaster rifle from a modified Chevy Caprice; Muhammad was executed in 2009, Malvo remains imprisoned.
Dacoity
Dacoity, also called gang robbery (ḍakaitī), is the Indian offence of robbery committed or attempted by five or more persons conjointly, punishable with life imprisonment or up to ten years, now under BNS Section 310.
Daisy Coleman
Daisy Coleman, American sexual assault survivor advocate from Maryville, Missouri, featured in the 2016 Netflix documentary Audrie & Daisy and co-founder of SafeBAE; died by suicide in 2020 at 23.
Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman
The pair were responsible for six murders and eighteen wounded in the Phoenix area between 2005 and 2006. Hausner was sentenced to death, and Dieteman received life imprisonment.
Dale Scheanette
Dale Devon Scheanette, the "bathtub killer," a Louisiana-born Texas death row inmate executed February 10, 2009, for the 1996 rape-strangulation of Wendie Prescott in Arlington; DNA and fingerprint evidence also linked him to Christine Vu's murder and five sexual assaults.
Dalton Gang
The Dalton Gang, or Dalton Brothers, was a group of Old West outlaws, led by three brothers and former deputy marshals, who robbed trains from 1891 to 1892.
Damien Echols
Damien Echols, born 1974, is an American writer and member of the West Memphis Three, convicted 1994 of three child murders and sentenced to death, released in 2011 under an Alford plea after DNA testing excluded him.
Damnatio ad bestias
Damnatio ad bestias, Roman capital punishment by wild animals in the amphitheater, also called condemnation to the beasts. Applied to coiners, murderers, traitors, and Christians; not open to pardon; evidenced by York lion-bite skeleton and Perge terracottas.
Dan Saunders ATM glitch
Dan Saunders, a bartender from Wangaratta, exploited a 2011 flaw in the National Australia Bank ATM system, withdrawing $1.6 million over four and a half months.
Dana Ewell
Dana James Ewell, Fresno heir convicted of hiring college friend Joel Radovcich to murder his parents Dale and Glee and sister Tiffany in 1992 for an $8 million estate; both sentenced to life without parole in 1998.
Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera
Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera, alias "La Quica", reputed Medellín Cartel hitman under Pablo Escobar; convicted in Brooklyn in 1994 for the Avianca Flight 203 bombing, serving ten consecutive life sentences in California while claiming innocence.