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    On Crime: From Cain to Cyber Crime - Jack the Ripper to Youth Gangs - a New Look at Villains & Criminality
    On Crime: From Cain to Cyber Crime - Jack the Ripper to Youth Gangs - a New Look at Villains & Criminality
    On Crime: From Cain to Cyber Crime - Jack the Ripper to Youth Gangs - a New Look at Villains & Criminality
    Ebook115 pages1 hour

    On Crime: From Cain to Cyber Crime - Jack the Ripper to Youth Gangs - a New Look at Villains & Criminality

    By Anthony North

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    About this ebook

    You'll find every kind of crime here from ancient times to the modern. Loads of case studies from burglars to serial killers, plus an attempt at a grand unified theory of crime.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAnthony North
    Release dateNov 11, 2019
    ISBN9780463054840
    On Crime: From Cain to Cyber Crime - Jack the Ripper to Youth Gangs - a New Look at Villains & Criminality
    Author

    Anthony North

    Thinker & Storyteller****7,453 Words to Save the UK and I,Writer are now FREE. Scroll down to find them.*****1955 (Yorkshire, England) – I am born (Damn! Already been done). ‘Twas the best of times ... (Oh well).I was actually born in the year of Einstein's death, close to Scrooge's Counting House. It doesn't mean anything but it sounds good. As for my education, I left school at 15 and have had no formal education since. Hence, I'm self-taught.****From a family of newsagents, at 18 I did a Dick Whittington and went off to London, only to return to pretend to be Charlie and work in a chocolate factory.When I was ten I was asked what I wanted to be. I said soldier, writer and Dad. I never thought of it for years – having too much fun, such as a time as lead guitarist in a local rock band – but I served nine years in the RAF, got married and had seven kids. I realized my words had been precognitive when, at age 27, I came down with M.E. – a condition I’ve suffered ever since – and turned my attention to writing.Indeed, as I realized that no expert could tell me what was wrong with me, I began my quest to find out why. Little did I realize it would last decades and take me through the entire history of knowledge, leaving me with the certainty that our knowledge systems are inadequate.****My non-fiction is based on P-ology, a thought process I devised to work with patterns of knowledge, and designed to be a bedfellow to specialization. A form of Rational Holism, it seeks out areas the specialist may have missed. I work from encyclopaedias and introductory volumes in order to gain a grasp of many subjects and am not an expert in anything, but those patterns keep forming. Hence, I do not deal in truth, but ideas, and cover everything from politics to the paranormal.When reading my work I ask only: do I make sense? Of course, an expert would say: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I agree. And an expert has so little knowledge of everything.I also write novels and Flash Fiction in all genres.

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      Book preview

      On Crime - Anthony North

      On Crime:

      From Cain to Cyber Crime - Jack the Ripper to Youth Gangs - a new look at Villains & Criminality

      By Anthony North

      Copyright: Anthony North, 2019

      Cover image copyright: Yvonne North, 2019

      Smashwords Edition

      No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

      Other books by Anthony North

      Beginning in 2019 I’m publishing 14 volumes of my fiction, inc 7 novels in most genres, & 21 works of non-fiction covering cults, politics, conspiracies, religion, disasters, science, philosophy, warfare, crime, psychology, new age, green issues & all areas of the unexplained, inc ufology, lost worlds and the paranormal. Hopefully appearing at the rate of one a month, check out the latest launch at my bookstore at http://anthonynorth.com or buy direct from Smashwords for all devices at: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/anthonynorth

      In addition to the above, you may like my ‘I’ Series – 8 volumes of flash fiction (horror, sci fi, romance, adventure, crime), 4 volumes of poetry & 5 volumes of short essays from politics to the unexplained. Available from same links as above. Also check out my bookstore for news of my books out in paperback.

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      Chapter One - Murder Most Foul

      Chapter Two - Unsolved

      Chapter Three - History of Crime: Gods to Heroes

      Chapter Four - History of Crime: Renaissance, Conquistadores & Pirates

      Chapter Five - History of Crime: The 18th Century Crime Wave

      Chapter Six - History of Crime: Enlightenment, New Crimes & Cowboys

      Chapter Seven - History of Crime: Mafia, Trafficking & Tech

      Chapter Eight - History of Crime: Age of Monsters

      Chapter Nine - Serial Killers & Con Men

      Chapter Ten - The Psychology of Crime

      Chapter Eleven - After the Loot

      Chapter Twelve - The Gruesome Truth

      Chapter Thirteen - Serial Killer Revealed

      Chapter Fourteen - Crime & Society

      Chapter Fifteen - A New Look at Sentencing

      Contents by Subject

      Bibliography

      About the Author

      Connect With Anthony

      Introduction

      As footballer cum actor OJ Simpson raced down a Californian highway it was the stuff of Hollywood. With a TV chopper hovering above, the chase by dozens of police cars was beamed direct to the world. Simpson was suspected of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, found stabbed in her Los Angeles mansion close to the body of friend Ronald Goldman. Vital crime scene ingredients included a brown glove and ski mask, and when police arrived shortly after at Simpson's home, a similar glove was found.

      Simpson's trial has gone down in media history as trial as entertainment. Was the glove planted? Was some unknown stranger the killer? Or did Simpson go to that house on 12 June 1994 and kill Nicole and her friend in a brutal rage?

      Simpson was acquitted as the trial became a media circus, confirming nothing but our insatiable thirst for stories of crime. In 1997, however, a civil court found him liable for the deaths. But why do we have a fascination with the dark side of the human character; and what IS crime in the first place?

      Former British Prime Minister John Major once said of crime (interview Mail On Sunday – 1993): 'Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.' This was an important vote catcher, no doubt. But in terms of coming to grips with the reality of crime, this attitude is wrong. To condemn is to take action after the fact. To understand is to give hope of taking action before the next crime is committed; to pre-empt the attitude that leads to crime. As Eliza Cook wrote in ‘A Song for the Ragged Schools’ (1853): Better build schoolrooms for 'the boy' / Than cells and gibbets for 'the man'.

      Such an attitude can often seem unpopular. After all, after the crime emotions rise and retribution is wanted - we ARE human. But isn't the need to do unto others as they do unto you a criminal tendency itself? Whatever, it is hard not to agree with Alphonse Karr who said, in ‘Les Guepes’ (1849): ' ... if we are to abolish the death penalty, let the murderers take the first step.'

      Why does crime seem to be on the increase? One point that could play a part is the decrease in religious belief. Religion went hand in hand with morality. Today, one of the great debates is to understand morality without religion. Thus, morality becomes fickle and we walk a moral maze rather than a clearly defined line. But essential to that religious morality was the ability of religion to scare the person into obedience through fear of Divine retribution, as opposed to punishment from man. The Bible (I Kings): 'My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.'

      Crime often seems justified; in the mind of the criminal, at least. G K Chesterton understood this need to justify action when he wrote: 'Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.' (The Man Who Was Thursday – 1908)

      What lies behind such faulty thinking? Indeed, IS it faulty thinking? Is a man's property his own by natural right? Or could it be argued that for a man to have much property whilst others starve is a crime against humanity? Most people would agree with the former. But man's need to give to charity must surely leave a tinge of unease regarding the latter.

      Indeed, when seen in this way, what does and does not constitute crime can depend on a point of view rather than a fundamental stance.

      A true understanding of crime has always evaded us. Why is this? Maybe our mistake is to always see specific crimes needing specific understanding. My approach is holistic, seeing all crime as part of the same problem, and crime and society being so interlinked that an understanding of one cannot come without the understanding of the other. I am convinced that an understanding of crime has remained elusive because this holistic approach has not been tried.

      We live in an age of specialization, and only the specialist approach has so far been taken in criminology. But crime, like the criminal, may be more elusive than that. Indeed, the criminal is the most elusive man on Earth. As T S Eliot made clear in 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats' (1939): 'He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare: At whatever time the deed took place - Macavity wasn't there!'

      Murder Most Foul

      Society has a fascination with crime - particularly murder. We turn murderers into anti-heroes.

      Typical was Acid Bath Murderer, John George Haigh, brought up by strict Plymouth Brethren parents and told he was the product of evil of the flesh. A work shy conman, he had several spells in prison for petty crime before moving from Yorkshire to London. Thought to have killed nine people for profit, the first was William McSwann and his parents, selling off their properties.

      In 1948 he killed Dr Archie Henderson and his wife, again for their property, and the following year elderly rich woman Mrs Olive Durand-Deacon, who lived in the same hotel as Haigh. Following up her disappearance, police found dissolved body parts in a vat of acid in Haigh's workshop. He had tried to commit the perfect murders, but chemistry failed him. Pleading insanity by claiming to be a vampire, he was hanged in August 1949.

      Another British murder-for-profit killer was Brides in the Bath Killer, George Joseph Smith, hanged in 1915 for the murder of his three wives for whom he had taken out insurance and then killed by 'accidental' drowning. Another petty thief and bigamist (he ‘married’ seven times and robbed them) his first murder victim was Beatrice Mundy whom he married in 1910. Two years later they exchanged wills and she died a couple of days afterwards.

      In 1913 he married Alice Burnham, moving to Blackpool before her 'accident' in December. His final victim was Margaret Lofty, married in 1914 and dead shortly after a move from Bath to London. Eventually, concerned relatives of the deceased realised similarities in the deaths and alerted the police, Smith being arrested in February 1915.

      The bald, bearded Frenchman Henri Landru fascinated the public after capture in 1919. Known as Bluebeard, his sexual appetite led him to entrap women through advertisements in lonely hearts columns, promising to marry them. Getting them alone, he would have sex with them, defraud them of their money then kill them.

      He came unstuck when he turned up at the family

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