Skip to content

Monthly Archives: February 2010

EAC Reviews: American Homicide by Randolph Roth

American Homicide by Randolph Roth (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009), 655 pp. In American Homicide, Randolph Roth attempts to use the massive amount of historical data that he and his colleagues have assembled for the Historical Violence Database to explain patterns in the murder rate over broad historical time periods. […]

The American Malefactor’s Dictionary: artful dodger

artful dodger – someone who avoids lodging in the same place twice out of fear of arrest. Fagan, the Artful Dodger, and Oliver Twist. Image via Wikipedia In England, the term also meant either a lodger or an expert thief. The Artful Dodger was, of course, the name of Fagan’s top child-pickpocket in Charles Dickens’s […]

In the Media: Anthony Lamb and William Linsey Follow-up

Read my article on Anthony Lamb, who was perhaps America’s most successful transported convict, in February’s issue of The Readex Report: “‘Human Serpents sent us by our Mother Country’: The Transformation of Anthony Lamb, Transported Convict.” * * * J. L. Bell posted a follow-up to my recent article about the burglar William Linsey on […]

Early American Criminals: William Linsey and the Telltale Candle

Even though William Linsey was orphaned at a young age, this rough start did not appear to have any negative impact on him. Linsey was originally born in Palmer, MA in 1746, but at the age of two he went to live with Phinehas Mixture in Dudley, MA. By Linsey’s own account, Mixture raised him […]