What You Missed This Week
A recap of The Art of Explaining Crime Season 2, Episode 6
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 Credit1.
In case you missed any of this week’s posts, which I refer to collectively as “Episode 6”, I’ve collected links below.
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:
How “extreme sexual victimization histories” and race increase the chances of women going to prison (FSA: Prisons)
How victim and offence characteristics affect homicide case clearance (FSA: Case Clearance)
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.
How cannabis legalization policies affect youth mental health
How big data techniques can help gender-based violence research
What I’m reading
On Substack,
is working in public on a talk about media representations of true crime creators in American fiction:
Hat tip to
, who let me know about the following story:Explaining Crime Tip: When someone hasn’t been charged with a crime, don’t identify them
This week, I have another tip that sounds obvious when stated plainly, but think about this scenario:
You’re writing about a crime and learn, either directly from the police or through an online source, that the police have a “person of interest” in the case. What’s more, you have the name of the POI.
Do you publish the name? No, because they haven’t been charged, and if the police don’t have evidence to charge, they may decide not to charge. What then if you’ve published their name? It could ruin their life. Then it could ruin yours if they sue you.
The season so far
Back to today’s post. Did you miss any earlier episodes? I’ve got you covered:
Thank you for reading!
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.
Thanks for the shoutout!