Archive for the ‘crime and punishment’ Tag
I’ve had a relationship for more than fifty years with the criminal justice system in this country. Starting as a cop, then a private investigator, a corporate Loss Prevention specialist, and eventually working for the State of Maine in the Judicial Branch. I’m fascinated with all aspects of the profession which includes collecting odd bits of trivia which I’ll share with you today.
- The world’s first police detective was Eugene Françoise Vidocq. The Frenchman founded the plainclothes civil police unit, the Brigade de la se Surete, in 1812.
- C. Auguste Dupin was the world’s first fictional police detective. Edgar Allen Poe used Eugene François Vidocq as a model for his character C. Auguste Dupin in the 1841 short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” which is considered to be the world’s first detective story.
- The act of hanging, drawing, and quartering was not abolished in England until 1870.
- Sheraton Hope and Ormond Sacker were the original names of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous crime-fighting duo, Sherlock Homes and Dr. John Watson. They first appeared in a novel called “A Tangled Skein.” Doyle ultimately changed the novel’s title to “A Study in Scarlet” when it was officially published in 1887.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has sold more books than J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien combined.
- One in four convicts ultimately exonerated by DNA evidence confessed or pled guilty to crimes they did not commit.
- Until 1998 it was a valid defense against rape or sexual battery in Mississippi to claim that the female victim was not chaste in character.
- From the 11th to the 18th centuries criminals were executed in southeast Asia by being crushed by an elephant.
- A real-life member of Scotland Yard, Inspector Charles Frederick Field, was friends with author Charles Dickens and introduced Dickens to many of London’s criminal haunts. Dickens later featured the inspector in his 1851 short story “On Duty with Inspector Field.”
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL POLICE
As most of you already know I am a lover of trivia. I’ve been collecting trivia and books on trivia for as long as I can remember. Most trivia are fun and interesting and humorous but not today. Today’s trivia is a little more scary than usual but trivia, nonetheless. I thought mixing it up a bit might catch your interest quicker than just another ‘trivial trivia list’. Let’s get started . . .
FOODS
- Peanut allergies afflict an estimated 4 million Americans and can be life-threatening. Almost half of annual emergency room visits and two thirds of deaths due to anaphylaxis are the result of peanut allergies.
- A medium fruit-and-yogurt smoothie at Dunkin’ Donuts contains four times as much sugar as a chocolate frosted cake donut.
- One in five office coffee mugs contains fecal bacteria and E. coli, which can cause diarrhea, food poisoning, and infections.
- Almost 99% of imported food is never inspected by the FDA or the USDA, two agencies responsible for protecting Americans from tainted products.
- Long a staple of the American diet and the US economy, corn is a high-carbohydrate, high-glycemic food that fattens up cattle and does the same to humans who consume it in excess.
DRUGS
- The United States has only 4% of the world’s population but consumes 65% of its supply of hard drugs.
- About 14 million Americans fit the criteria for alcoholism or alcohol abuse.
- Smoking causes acute myeloid leukemia, as well as cancer in other areas of the body, including the bladder, mouth, larynx, cervix, kidneys, lungs, esophagus, pancreas, and stomach.
- Among women, cigarette use correlates with level of education. Smoking estimates are highest for women without traditional high school diplomas and lowest for women with college degrees.
- Caffeine is more addictive than marijuana.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
- 10% of the U.S. states now spend as much money or more on corrections than on higher education.
- Misidentified eyewitness testimony was a factor in 77% of DNA exoneration cases, making it the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the United States. In 40% of the cases, cross-racial identification was a factor. Studies show that people are less likely to recognize faces of a different race, making race a factor in wrongful convictions.
- By law, all citizens must take a bath at least once a year in Kentucky.
I’ll be following up on this list within the next couple of weeks because I have an abundance of interesting trivia about just any topic you can think of. I promise to pass along as much as I can as soon as I can.
ENJOY YOUR MAYDAY WEEKEND
Being a former police officer, I still maintain interest in all things criminal, crime related, and punishment. I’m also a big fan of almost any book, fiction or nonfiction, about investigations concerning any crime you can think of. That makes today Crime and Punishment Trivia Day and I’ll pass along a few tidbits you may find interesting.
Let’s go back in history a few hundred years to examine methods of punishment for murderers, rapists, and traitors. From what I can see they were a little harsher with punishment than we seem to be these days.
- First on the list is the wheel. Criminals were lashed to a wagon wheel and their limbs bludgeoned or broken by brute force. Ugly but effective.
- Next, we have boiling. The criminals were immersed in boiling water, oil, or hot tar and fried to death. Yuck! Soups on.
- Another favorite was flaying. That involves the removal of a person’s skin which could keep the criminal alive for a day or two until he died from shock. I’d say this is really cruel and really unusual punishment.
- This is a Chinese favorite called “The Death of a Thousand Cuts”. It is where the criminal was lashed to a frame and over a period of days pieces of their body were severed and removed with a knife. Had to be the Mongolians who started this trend.
- This crowd-pleaser is called disembowelment. The criminal’s abdomen was opened while alive with a knife, and his organs were individually removed, particularly the bowels. No comment on this disgusting method since I had it done to me but with an anesthesia.
- Impalement involves driving a pointed stake through the victim’s body from the rectum up through the breast and shoulder. Ouch!!!!!
- Stoning is when a large group of people were gathered together to throw stones at the criminal. The point here is that no single person is responsible for the death, it’s a group act. What a Sharia loving group.
- Decapitation is the removal of the victims’ head by knife, sword, ax, or guillotine. One way to keep ahead of the criminals.
- Burning at the stake involves exposing the criminal to direct flames or heat until death occurs. Barbecues had to start somewhere.
- Hanging, drawn, and quartering requires criminals to be dragged behind a horse to a platform where they were then hanged, removed just before the moment of death, and then castrated, disemboweled, beheaded, and quartered. That’s like killing the criminal three times over.
- And last but not least an unusual punishment popular in Southeast Asia from the 11th – 18th centuries. The criminal is tied up, placed under the foot of an elephant, and then crushed. No more circus visits for me, I’ll have nightmares.
I think all of the criminals living in this country should count their blessings and except Life Imprisonment Without Chance of Parole as being mighty generous and merciful. It’s hard to imagine how many of these methods were used often and without hesitation. It’s also hard to imagine how they had any crime rate whatsoever when the criminals knew these kinds of punishments were being handed out. But to quote an expert, “Stupid is as Stupid Does”.
THANKS GO OUT TO FORREST GUMP FOR THE QUOTE
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