What You Missed This Week

A recap of The Art of Explaining Crime Season 2, Episode 5

Feb 07, 2025

This is The Art of Explaining Crime, an independent newsletter that helps you think and write about crime.

Hello from the Canadian city of Guelph, which is built on land in the Between the Lakes Purchase, a treaty and territory of the Mississaguas of the Credit.1

In case you missed any of this week’s posts, which I refer to collectively as “Episode 5”, I’ve collected links below.

a black and white photo of a group of people walking on a train track — Photo by Museums of History New South Wales on Unsplash

What I Do

The popular What I Do series used to be weekly, but will now appear on Wednesdays when I have someone to feature. Can you think of someone in the crime content space who you’d like me to feature? They could be a journalist, academic, advocate, author, or anyone else who routinely participates in creating content about crime. Let me know in a comment or direct message.

Five Studies About

This week’s free Five Studies About tip sheets included:

Crime Research Updates

This week’s paid Crime Research Update tip sheets included the following posts. Remember that each post’s headline highlights a carefully selected study, the link to which appears before the paywall.

Adjacent posts

Short form

Here’s a Bluesky post that’s relevant…

I came across this study on Monday while preparing that day’s Crime Research Update. It’s a bit of inside baseball stuff, but might interest you nonetheless.

Explaining Crime Tip: When someone hasn’t been convicted of a crime, don’t suggest they committed that crime

Explaining Crime Tips are something I’m trying this week, and with the first one I’m going with what will seem to many of you, especially the journalists, something that doesn’t need saying.

It’s the job of the courts to determine guilt, not us. We can believe someone’s guilty, but until a court finds them guilty, they’re innocent in the eyes of the law. As in, “innocent until proven guilty.” So if we suggest in our writing, podcasts, video, or social media that someone’s guilty before they’ve been found guilty in court, we’re opening ourselves up to a world of trouble.

As Dean Jobb puts it in the copy of Media Law in Canada (not an affiliate link) I keep on my shelf: “If published before a court has passed judgment, any suggestion that a suspect is guilty as charged is likely to invite a contempt action.” As in, “contempt of court.”

Unfortunately, I see writers suggest guilt all the time, especially new writers in outlets without editorial oversight.

I’m not going to name any writers, but I will create a couple scenarios that would count as suggesting guilt:

Say you’re writing about a crime (that just happened) for a news outlet. You cover the basics of what happened, when, where, and so on. The police have charged two suspects, so you name them. The problem is how you did it: “Police charged the culprits, Joe and Jon Blow, with committing the crimes.” You just suggested these two people are guilty and they’ve only been charged.
Say you’re writing about a crime for a Medium article. It’s a murder case. You’ve read everything available on the case and you believe that the person police have charged is guilty. You write the article from that perspective, including the part where you outline what happened (i.e. the crime). The problem is that the jury hasn’t decided on a verdict yet and this section is a blow-by-blow of what Joe Blow did (e.g. “Blow shot the victim twice in the head”). Any reference to the crime and who did it reads similarly. You’ve just said the accused is guilty, but they’re still at trial.

Getting the picture? Great! Don’t do it!

The season so far

Back to today’s post. Did you miss any earlier episodes? I’ve got you covered:

Thank you for reading!

Thank you to my first founding member

Evan Maxwell

became my first founding member this week. Thanks Evan! You’ve made it possible for me to spend way more time on this newsletter.

Here’s what Evan had to say the day he upgraded to founding member:

I almost blushed.

Want to become a founding member? Or to upgrade from whatever tier you’re on? You can do that here:

Next week: A one-week hiatus

As you might recall from the publishing schedule, next week’s a hiatus. I’m taking some time off with the family, right about when I need to give my brain a break from the newsletter. I’ll be back, hopefully with renewed energy, the week of Feb. 17.

I’m working on text to acknowledge the history of the land I have the privilege to live on and do the work of this newsletter from. It is a work in progress. As I do that work, I’m also reflecting on what I can do to contribute to reconciliation in my country, particularly Call to Action #86 (PDF). I do this as a white, cishet man who has benefited immeasurably from the historical and current state of affairs. While I consider this work important for all of us to do, I think it’s particularly relevant to a newsletter about crime. I’ll come back to why I think that in future newsletters.

The Art of Explaining Crime