True Crime

Author Casey Cep discusses her new book about Harper Lee's unfinished manuscript detailing the alleged crimes of an Alabama preacher and the man who shot him.

George Frese, Kevin Pease, Marvin Roberts, and Eugene Vent — better known as the Fairbanks Four—spent 18 years in prison for a murder they didn’t commit. On the anniversary of the crime, a look at how their incarceration exposed the deep racial divides within the local community.

By leaving out crucial statistics, the Netflix phenomenon plays into clichés about murdered women.

In 1989 in Fairbanks, Alaska, Byran Perotti killed Johnny Jackson in cold blood. The community's silence around the murder compounded the shock of the crime itself.

Criminologist and author Michael Arntfield talks with us about the past and future of true crime.

The New York Police Department has been cutting down on arrests. Is that necessarily a bad thing?

Scientific research reveals the harmful effects of Tasers, on both body and mind.

How a cop whose last job was policing the streets of Fargo, North Dakota, turned around a town that had a reputation as one of the most violent places in America.

Recent research about ways to deal with police misconduct, and some of its unintended consequences.

Vanderbilt University’s Jonathan Metzl and Kenneth MacLeish address our anxieties and correct our assumptions.

States pay hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to keep each juvenile offender behind bars. A new report calculates that long-term costs of incarceration could add up to $21 billion annually.

New research cautions journalists against harming their most vulnerable sources.

Visualize cool beers on warm summer nights.

A new study finds an inconsistent patchwork of policies across states for how juvenile records are sealed and expunged.

The legacy of “tough on crime” legislation has historically allowed correctional authorities to conceal and pursue politics that would be illegal anywhere else. Could that finally be changing?

The techniques of jury consultants are unreliable, and often incentivize the use of lazy stereotypes.

The tools and methods have evolved over the decades, but the crime remains the same.

Where do you go for help when the people who are meant to keep you safe are the real danger?

Exploring the psychological roots of racial disparity in U.S. prisons.

An FBI agent offered up confidential information about a political operative’s enemy in exchange for cash—and they both got caught. What were they thinking?

Community courts across the country are fighting judicial backlog and lowering re-arrest rates.

New York City is ending its use of solitary confinement for juvenile offenders. Here's the science behind the decision.

And what can they do to prevent it?

Another group that's especially vulnerable to scams and fraud is that made up of those who are desperate to adopt a child.