Articles tagged as Crime | Smithsonian Magazine

Ain't no rest for the wicked … or the innocent.

New Research

Sleepy Suspects Are Way More Likely to Falsely Confess to a Crime

In a study, almost 70 percent of sleep-deprived people admitted to something they didn’t do

February 9, 2016

Only a portion of the scores of children buried at the former Florida School for Boys were located in its graveyard. The majority of students were buried elsewhere in unmarked, undocumented graves.

New Research

Archaeologists Finally Know What Happened at This Brutal Reform School

The Florida School for Boys did anything but rehabilitate its students

January 25, 2016

Lorcan Ortway turned his lifelong obsession with organized crime into a museum in New York.

This Mobster Museum Was Once One of New York City’s Most Notorious Speakeasies

See shell casings from Bonnie and Clyde’s final shoot out and John Dillinger’s death mask in the Museum of the American Gangster’s unusual collection

January 6, 2016

The software bug has been miscalculating release dates for 13 years

December 23, 2015

A woman herds cattle on horseback at Dumbell Ranch in Wyoming

Trending Today

The Modern Cost of Cattle Rustling

Why the Old West crime is still a multimillion-dollar problem

November 2, 2015

Trending Today

Why Do Witch Hunts Still Happen?

Across the globe, witchcraft fears still lead to torture and murder

October 30, 2015

New Research

Future Cops May Track Down Criminals By Making Fingerprints Glow

One scientist’s revenge could be the ultimate crime-fighting tool

October 23, 2015

A bowl done in a style first seen around A.D. 1100 has “acid blooms” on its interior—imperfections suggesting that someone used modern soaps to clean the bowl up, possibly to fetch a higher price on the black market.

An Exclusive Look at the Greatest Haul of Native American Artifacts, Ever

In a warehouse in Utah, federal agents are storing tens of thousands of looted objects recovered in a massive sting

November 2015

Lee Harvey Oswald stands in his backyard with Marxist newspapers and a rifle. This photo has been looked on with suspicion ever since Oswald called it a fake after John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

New Research

3D Model Showed Controversial Photo of John F. Kennedy’s Assassin Is Not a Fake

Doubts surrounded the incriminating photo since Kennedy was assassinated in 1963

October 19, 2015

Howard Unruh, a war veteran, killed 13 people by shooting from a window down into a crowded street. Police forced him out of the apartment with tear gas.

The Story of the First Mass Shooting in U.S. History

Howard Unruh’s “Walk of Death” foretold an era in which such tragedies would become all too common

October 14, 2015

A newspaper report of Leoti Blaker, who stabbed a man with a hatpin when he would not leave her alone.

Cool Finds

American Women in the 1900s Called Street Harassers ‘Mashers’ and Stabbed Them With Hatpins

These are the turn-of-the-century women who fought back when men tried to grab them

October 2, 2015

Cheese is the most stolen food in the world

September 30, 2015

Microbial clouds give new meaning to the term "personal space."

New Research

You Produce a Microbial Cloud That Can Act Like an Invisible Fingerprint

The unique cloud follows you wherever you go—and could ID you in a crowd

September 22, 2015

New Research

Putting Eyeballs on Billboards Might Help Stop Crime

The feeling of being watched makes human change their behavior, even if it comes from a poster.

August 26, 2015

Law and Order: Social Media Unit

The San Francisco Police Department may have an “Instagram officer,” but other forces are trolling social media for criminal activity too

August 19, 2015

Monique Hammerslag of the Dutch police force in Rotterdam with two of her recruits

Cool Finds

Inside a Dutch Police Academy…for Rats

Cigarette-sniffing rats are creating new job opportunities for their fellow rodents

August 11, 2015

Johannes Vermeer's "The Concert" was one of the most valuable paintings stolen from the Gardener Museum

Footage shows an unknown man entering the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum the night before the infamous robbery

August 7, 2015

New Research

How Time, Space and Authority Figures Influence Your Moral Judgment

A study of how people respond to outrageous acts suggests that our sense of crime and punishment is surprisingly flexible

August 4, 2015

More headless animals (and surveillance video) have been found

June 30, 2015

Sand Mining on the banks of the Sita River near Mabukala bridge in Brahmavar, India

Cool Finds

The Demand for Sand is so High There are Illegal Sand Mining Operations

Only certain kinds of sand can be used in construction and mining it causes problems

June 23, 2015