U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Cops, Crooks, and Criminologists: An International Biographical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, Updated Edition

NCJ Number
183842
Author(s)
Charles Phillips; Alan Axelrod
Date Published
2000
Length
336 pages
Annotation
This volume contains biographical sketches on more than 600 of the most notorious crime fighters and criminals from 2100 B.C. to the present.
Abstract
Volume entries include Hammurabi, whose legal code embodied the idea of an eye for an eye; Allen Pinkerton, who immigrated from Scotland to the United States in 1842 and started the world's first professional detective agency; Joseph Faurot, considered the father of fingerprinting in the United States; Barry Scheck, a defense lawyer who championed the use of DNA testing; Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber; and Carlos-Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez, the first internationally recognized terrorist of the 20th century. The authors believe that understanding historical aspects of crime and criminals is essential and that the biographical sketches contribute to this understanding because current basic elements of law enforcement (secular laws, bureaucratic and professional police forces, and rational criminal investigations) did not develop in a vacuum. The biographical sketches describe significant individuals who have shaped crime and law enforcement throughout history. Photographs