Basic Criminology Trivia Quiz

Answer: It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent person suffer

Blackstone's four volumes of "Commentaries on the Laws of England" set the direction that justice and jurisprudence should take in the UK, and also played a role in the development of the American legal system. In it he proposed that a defendant in a trial should be presumed to be innocent until found otherwise, and that the standard of proof for this should be "beyond reasonable doubt". This led to the summary expressed in Blackstone's ratio, that it's better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent person suffer.

The presumption of the innocence of a person brought to trial is one of the founding principles of British law and also the law of many other democratic countries. The principle that false convictions are worse than false acquittals is central to the jurisprudence in these societies. It is particularly used in the US, where the Founding Fathers made many references to it, for example Benjamin Franklin - although he preferred that the ratio be a hundred guilty persons escaping than one person suffering.

This viewpoint has its challengers. For example, Jeremy Bentham dismissed "those sentimental exaggerations which tend to give crime impunity under the pretext of insuring the safety of innocence". It should also be noted that the incorrect answer option is popular in many totalitarian societies; for example, the founder of the Soviet secret police Felix Dzerzhinsky took it to a more extreme level saying that it's "better to execute ten innocent men than to leave one guilty man alive".

So in many ways this debate is still ongoing, as authoritarian leaders also try to dispense with various foundations of liberal democracy such as habeas corpus, due process and free speech.

Answer: Chief Police Officer Juan Vucetich in Argentina in 1891

The first system of providing fingerprint evidence that was actually used in a criminal trial was that devised by Juan Vucetich, a chief police officer in Argentina in 1892. A colleague of his, Inspector Álvarez, went to a crime scene and found a bloody thumb mark on a door. When it was compared with the suspect's prints it was found to be identical with theirs.

The use of fingerprints goes back as far as the age of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (reigned 1792 to 1750 BCE), when law officials would take the fingerprints of people who had been arrested. The Chinese also used ridge impressions on the fingers as a means of identification; the earliest example comes from a Chinese document entitled "The Volume of Crime Scene Investigation - Burglary", from the Qin Dynasty (221 to 206 BCE).

In 1880 Dr. Henry Faulds published a paper in "Nature" in which he discussed his observations about fingerprints and suggested a way to obtain them using printers' ink. He offered the concept to the Metropolitan Police in London, but they expressed no interest. Later he sent his findings to Charles Darwin, who passed them on to his cousin, anthropologist Sir Francis Galton. Galton proved that fingerprints do not change over the course of a person's life, and that no two fingerprints are the same (more or less). In 1892 Vucetich created the first fingerprint files based on Galton's system.

Later, the French scientist Paul-Jean Coulier developed a method of transferring latent fingerprints from surfaces onto paper. This allowed the police in London to fingerprint individuals and to identify criminals using their previously recorded fingerprints. American police departments adopted the same method soon after. In 1902 the Scheffer case was the first in which the identification, arrest, and conviction of a person based solely upon previously recorded fingerprint evidence took place.

Answer: By developing the "mug shot"

Bertillon invented the "mug shot", typically using one side-view photo and one front-view with a plain background. The photographing of criminals had begun in the 1840s but in 1888 Bertillon standardized the process.

Bertillon applied the technique of anthropometry to law enforcement, creating an identification system based on physical measurements; this was the first scientific system used by police to identify criminals. This system consisted of five initial measurements: head length and breadth, length of middle finger, length of the left foot, and the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. This is now referred to as the Bertillon system.

Answer: Captain Alfred Dreyfus

Captain Alfred Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent who was wrongfully convicted of treason for communicating French military secrets to the Germans. The verdict was based upon the handwriting on an intercepted note from a spy in the French army to the Germans; although the handwriting was clearly not that of Dreyfus, Bertillon said that it was. France at that time was ridden with anti-Semitism, so although there was no actual evidence against Dreyfus, his background was enough to see him convicted.

Bertillon's explanation for his opinion was extraordinary. He devised the concept of "autoforgery", saying that the differences between Dreyfus's handwriting and that on the note could be explained by Dreyfus imitating his own handwriting in an attempt to disguise it sufficiently to look as if another person had tried to forge it. No, I don't understand that either!

Dreyfus was found guilty and spent five years on Devil's Island. He was then put on trial again and again found guilty, with the evidence proving his innocence being suppressed. Eventually he was pardoned and rejoined the army in 1906.

Spoiler alert! Looking at the incorrect answer options, Major du Paty was appointed to investigate the spying activity allegedly carried out by Dreyfus. He was a rabid anti-Semite, and many years later he became the Head of "Jewish Afffairs" in the Vichy government in WWII. Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart was the Head of the army's "Statistical Section" (ie anti-espionage and security); he proved that Dreyfus was innocent. And Major Esterhazy was the real spy - he was tried for treason, acquitted (!!) and fled France to spend the rest of his life in England.

If anyone is interested in the Dreyfus Affair I'd recommend the novel "An Officer and a Spy" (2013) by Robert Harris - not just an excellent read but also very true to what actually happened.

Answer: Every contact leaves a trace

Locard's formulation of the basic principle of forensic science was that "Every contact leaves a trace". It follows that with contact between two items there will always be an exchange of material, so the perpetrator of a crime will bring something to the crime scene and leave with something from it. This might be clothing fibres, blood, fingerprints, paint, hair, skin flakes, etc. This is crucial for crime scene investigation, as it allows investigators to link suspects to victims, objects, and locations.

Locard was also the first person to codify Galton points, fingerprint characteristics meant for identification. He became known as the "Sherlock Holmes of France".

Answer: The pattern of the veins on the back of a person's hands

Dame Sue Black discovered that people could be individually identified by analysing the pattern of the veins on the backs of their hands. This has proved to be of great value in the identification of paedophiles, who often take and share photographs of their actions; in 2009 this evidence led to the succesful prosecution of Scotland's largest paedophile ring.

Black has worked in forensic anthropology for many years and in many parts of the world, such as Kosovo after the war in 1998 and Thailand after the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. She has written a number of books about her work, including "All That Remains" (2018) and "An Expert Witness" (2026). She has been the recipient of more awards and honours than you could shake a stick at!

Answer: Serial killer

Ernst Gennat coined the term "serial killer" in his 1930 article "Die Düsseldorfer Sexualverbrechen" to describe the multiple murderer and rapist Peter Kürten.

Kürten, known as The Vampire of Düsseldorf and the Düsseldorf Monster, committed a number of murders and sexual assaults in the city of Düsseldorf between February and November 1929. The police first thought that the crimes were the work of more than one perpetrator: the victims came from diverse backgrounds and had been assaulted or murdered in differing ways. However he'd sent three letters to the police, and a graphologist concluded that the same person had written all of them. This led Gennat to conclude that one man was responsible for most or all of these crimes. Kürten was eventually arrested after a woman who'd escaped from him led the police to his address; he made a full confession, was found guilty of nine counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder, and was later executed.

The German forensic scientist Karl Berg described Kürten as "the king of the sexual perverts". Writing about the case the next year, Gennat coined the term "serial killer".

Gennat was an extraordinary person, extremely modern in his views. He was among the first to recognize the importance of the exact preservation of evidence at crime scenes, his record keeping was revolutionary, and he was a strong advocate of non-violent interrogation. He also weighed about 120 kilograms (270 lbs) which contributed to him being known as the "Big Guy from the homicide squad".

Answer: Mend the broken windows as quickly as possible

The Broken Window theory suggests that visible signs of low-level problems such as vandalism, petty crime and antisocial behavior create an environment that encourages further crime and disorder, often of greater seriousness. However, policing methods that target minor crimes expeditiously and effectively help to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness that discourages this behaviour. So if the broken windows are repaired within a short time, say a week, the result is that vandals are much less likely to break more windows or do further damage.

The theory was published in an article by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, published in 1982. It was popularized in the 1990s by New York City police commissioner William Bratton, whose policing policies were influenced by the theory. This seemed to work in New York: a study in 2001 of crime trends in the city showed that rates of both petty and serious crime dropped significantly after quality-of-life policing policies were implemented. Furthermore, crime across all categories continued to decline for the following ten years. This effect has been replicated in a number of American and European cities.

It has to be said, however, that the theory has received a lot of critical attention. Primarily this is concerned with the extra police presence needed in affected areas, leading to complaints of overpolicing and increasing tension between the police and some residents.

Answer: DNA fingerprinting

Jeffreys experienced his "eureka moment" after looking at the X-ray image of a DNA experiment, which unexpectedly showed both similarities and differences between the DNA of various members of a family. He immediately realised the possible extent of DNA fingerprinting, which uses variations in the genetic information to identify individuals.

The first use of DNA fingerprinting in a criminal case was in 1985 to identify the killer of two teenage girls who had been raped and murdered in Narborough, Leicestershire, in 1983 and 1986. Colin Pitchfork was identified and convicted of their murders after samples taken from him matched semen samples taken from the two dead girls. This turned out to be an especially important identification as the police believe that without it an innocent man would have been convicted.

Since then the use of DNA fingerprinting has spread throughout the world, and Jeffreys has received an absolute shedful of awards and honours.

If you're interested in the story of the development of DNA testing you should read "The Blooding: The True Story of the Narborough Village Murders" (1989) by Joseph Wambaugh.

Answer: The British Crime Survey

For many years the only data recorded concerning the incidence of crime were that collected by the various police forces in the UK. However in 1982 the criminologist Ronald Clarke in the Home Office pioneered the British Crime Survey. This collects victimisation data using random-sample interviews with over 32,000 people every year. It has revealed that actual victimisation rates are often double those reported to the police, and that police data sometimes move in opposite directions from lived experiences. The Survey is now regarded as the most reliable indicator of crime trends, while police figures have lost their status as official statistics.

Interestingly, the actual BCS crime data often do not match what many people say about crime. People often think that crime around them is rising, when for many years crime levels througout the industrialised nations have been falling. It's thought that people's frequent exposure to graphic violent crime on the media - both fictional and real-life - is related to this.