3,576 articles
First information report
First information report (FIR), the police document recording first information of a cognizable offence in India (CrPC 154, now BNSS 173); mandatory registration per Lalita Kumari (2014), with zero FIR and e-FIR provisions.
First Step Act
First Step Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-391), US federal criminal justice reform law signed December 21, 2018: earned time credits, PATTERN risk tool, retroactive Fair Sentencing Act, reduced mandatory minimums, expanded good time credit.
Fitness to plead
Fitness to plead (fitness to stand trial, competency to stand trial) is the legal standard for a criminal defendant's capacity to understand and participate in trial, tested in England and Wales by the 1836 Pritchard criteria under the Criminal Procedure (Insanity) Act 1964.
Five Families
The Five Families are New York City's major Italian-American Mafia organizations: Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese, formed after the 1930–31 Castellammarese War under Lucky Luciano's Commission. Once controlling rackets citywide, they remain active in gambling and labor racketeering despite RICO-era prosecutions.
Five Points Gang
Five Points Gang: late-1890s New York street gang founded by Paul Kelly (Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli) in the Five Points slum, heir to the Dead Rabbits and Bowery Boys, tied to Tammany-era voter fraud.
Five Punishments (五刑)
Five Punishments (五刑, wu xing) is the generic Chinese term for the five standard penalties of the penal system: early versions centered on tattooing, nose and foot amputation, castration, and death; the Sui-Tang system used beatings, servitude, exile, and death.
FKU IK-3, Kharp
FKU IK-3, Kharp (Polar Wolf, Полярный волк) is a Russian special-regime men's penal colony in Kharp, Yamalo-Nenets Okrug, founded 1961, EU-sanctioned for torture, and where Alexei Navalny died in February 2024.
Flagellation
Flagellation, from Latin flagellare, is whipping oneself or others as punishment, penance, or ritual. Distinguished from mere flogging by its disciplinary, religious (Peter Damian, 1260 and 1349 Flagellants), and judicial histories.
Flaying
Flaying, or being flayed alive, is the deliberate removal of skin from a human or animal body, historically used as an execution method and punishment, attested in Assyrian reliefs.
Flor Contemplacion
Flor Contemplacion (Flor Ramos Contemplacion, 1953-1995), Filipina domestic worker hanged in Singapore on 17 March 1995 for the 1991 murders of Della Maga and Nicholas Huang; her execution triggered a Philippines-Singapore diplomatic crisis and R.A. 8042.
Florian Teichtmeister child pornography scandal
Criminal case against Austrian actor Florian Teichtmeister (Burgtheater, Corsage), who was convicted in Vienna in September 2023 of possessing and producing 76,000 child sexual abuse files and received a two-year suspended sentence.
Florida Department of Corrections
The Florida Department of Corrections is the state agency running Florida's prison system, the nation's third-largest, with over 90,000 inmates and a $3.8 billion budget.
Florida School for Boys
Florida School for Boys, also called the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, was a Florida state reform school in Marianna, opened 1900 and closed 2011, notorious for abuse; USF excavated 55 unmarked graves, and a 2024 law created $20 million in victim compensation.
Florida State Prison
Florida State Prison (FSP) near Raiford and Starke, Bradford County, is Florida's maximum-security men's prison and the site of the state execution chamber, where lethal injection and electric chair executions are carried out.
Florida State University Chi Omega murders
Florida State University Chi Omega murders: Ted Bundy's January 15, 1978 night attacks on the Chi Omega sorority house in Tallahassee, killing Lisa Levy and Margaret Bowman, and the 1979 Miami trial built on bite-mark evidence.
Fodder Scam (चारा घोटाला)
The Fodder Scam, known in Hindi as चारा घोटाला, was a fraud on Bihar's treasuries through fake fodder bills, from 1977 to 1996, investigated in connection with chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Folk Nation
Folk Nation ("Folks") is a Chicago-origin alliance of street and prison gangs formed in Illinois prisons in the late 1970s under Larry Hoover's Gangster Disciples, using six-point stars and right-side representation, rival to the People Nation.
Folsom State Prison
Folsom State Prison (FSP), in Represa, California, is the state's second oldest prison, opened July 26, 1880 after 1858 authorization, housing Level II/III medium-security men near California State Prison, Sacramento, known as New Folsom.
Foot whipping
Foot whipping, also called falaka, falanga, or bastinado, is the beating of a person's bare foot soles with a rod or lash, used as punishment and torture, prohibited under international law, and documented in Middle Eastern detention systems.
Forced prostitution
Forced prostitution, also called involuntary prostitution, occurs when a person is made to engage in prostitution through coercion, violence, or deception that removes genuine consent.
Forensic interviewing
Forensic interviewing is structured, legally defensible questioning of victims or witnesses by specially trained professionals, using non-leading, open-ended prompts to gather reliable evidence about alleged abuse, exploitation, or violence.
Forgery
Forgery: the false making or alteration of a writing with intent to defraud, rooted in Roman crimen falsi and English common law; covers document, art, and digital forgery with varying penalties worldwide.
Formal Social Control
Formal social control: regulation of behavior through written laws, official rules, and sanctions by institutions such as legislatures, police, courts, and prisons, contrasted with informal control via community norms; MeSH descriptor D012926, introduced 1968.
Forrest Tucker (criminal)
Forrest Tucker, American career bank robber and escape artist (1930s to 1999), distinct from the F Troop actor of the same name; famous for the 1979 San Quentin kayak escape, the Over the Hill Gang, and United States v. Tucker (1972).
Forum spam
Forum spam: unsolicited commercial or link-bearing posts on discussion forums, mostly automated and aimed at building search-ranking backlinks. Key stats: 96% of registrations rejected, 85% of blocks from reputation lists.
Fotios Geas
Fotios "Freddy" Geas (Φώτιος Γκέας), Greek-American Genovese family enforcer from West Springfield, Massachusetts; sentenced to life in 2011 for the 2003 Bruno and Westerman murders, and in 2018 killed Whitey Bulger at USP Hazelton, drawing 25 more years in 2024.
Frameup
Frameup (frame-up, setup): falsely implicating someone in a crime via fabricated evidence or testimony; informal American English term from 1895–1900, documented in exoneration research on planted drugs and police perjury.
Francis Clifford Smith
Francis Clifford Smith (Frank Smith, 1924-2026), Connecticut man convicted in 1950 of the 1949 murder of watchman Grover Hart; spared execution eight times, served 70 years, and died as the longest-serving US prisoner.
Francisco Javier Arellano Félix
Francisco Javier Arellano Félix (El Tigrillo) led the Tijuana-based Arellano Félix Organization drug cartel; captured by the U.S. Coast Guard in 2006 aboard the yacht Dock Holiday, he pleaded guilty in 2007 and is serving a life sentence with $50 million forfeiture.
Francisco Martin Duran
Francisco Martin Duran, born 1968, fired about 29 SKS rifle rounds at the White House North Lawn on October 29, 1994, mistaking a Clinton look-alike for the president; convicted of attempted assassination, sentenced to 40 years.