Curated category
Crimes
- AssaultIn the terminology of law, an assault is the act of causing physical harm or unwanted physical contact to another person.
- TortureA captured Viet Cong soldier, blindfolded and tied in a stress position by American forces during the Vietnam War of 1967, illustrates the deliberate…
- RobberyRobbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined…
- KidnappingThe abduction of Dinah, painted by James Tissot in the 19th century, captures a moment of unlawful removal that has defined legal debates for over a hundred…
- MurderIn 1960, the United States recorded a murder rate of 4.5 per 100,000 people. This statistic masks the complex legal machinery required to label such a death…
- Battery (crime)The legal definition of battery centers on a single, concrete action: unlawful intentional infliction of harmful or offensive physical contact with another…
- Human cannibalismThe site of Herxheim in Germany holds the remains of more than a thousand people who were killed and eaten approximately 7000 years ago.
- Organized crimeIn 1970, the United States passed the Organized Crime Control Act to legally define what constitutes a criminal enterprise.
- Driving under the influenceGeorge Smith, a London taxi cab driver, became the first person convicted of driving a motor vehicle while intoxicated on the 10th of September 1897.
- CorruptionIn 1994, the German Parliamentary Financial Commission in Bonn presented a comparative study on legal corruption in industrialized OECD countries.
- PolygamyThe word polygamy comes from Late Greek terms meaning state of marriage to many spouses. It describes the practice of marrying multiple spouses at once.
- War crimeA U.S. soldier observed victims of the Malmedy massacre on the 17th of December 1944 in Belgium, where 84 American prisoners of war were murdered by…
- TerrorismThe word terrorism emerged from the French Revolution of the late 1790s to describe the actions of the Jacobin Club during the Reign of Terror.
- HomicideA volitional act or an omission causes the death of another person. This simple definition covers accidental, reckless, and negligent acts even when no…
- ViolenceThe World Health Organization defined violence in 2002 as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another…