True Crime & Justice

In 1994, Christopher Scarver beat Jeffrey Dahmer to death with a metal bar in prison, ending the life of one of the most notorious serial killers in history.

The birth of forensics science can be attributed to Dr Joseph Bell whose observational techniques were the basis for the character of Sherlock Holmes.

Was William Heirens innocent? His confession to three murders as the Lipstick Killer in 1946 at just 17 years old has now come under question.

The 1996 Port Arthur massacre remains one of the most deadly mass shootings in the world carried out by one individual.

Edward Lee Elmore served 29 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. In 2012, after 11’000 days in prison, he was finally a free man.

In 1924 Leopold and Loeb were tried for murder with a passionate twelve hour plea for mercy by their defence attorney, Clarence Darrow.

Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged at London’s Holloway Prison in 1955 influencing the final abolishment of capital punishment in the UK.

If the aims of prisons are to punish, deter and rehabilitate in order to reduce reoffending rates, they are not working particularly well.

When a juvenile life without parole sentence is given, there is no reform, no rehabilitation and no chance of release. Life means life.

An assumption that the simple imprisonment of an individual away from their community will automatically produce a level of reform is naive. Prisons, it could be said, are communities of their own and humans are remarkable at adaptation.