Questions tagged [crime]

For questions dealing with acts that violate the laws of a given legislation.

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4 answers
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How to uncover a suspicious person's hidden identity discreetly?

Its modern time 2010s to 2019. It's a normal world like ours. Takes place in a 1st world country like either USA or Korea. (Or if need be then a nameless civilized country) Q. You find a person ...
ArtTriad's user avatar
13 votes
19 answers
6k views

How to prevent criminal gangs from making/buying guns?

TLDR: What can modern governments do to force criminal gangs to use melee weapons instead of guns. So I am writing a novel where the main character is pushed out of society, and is forced to join a ...
Sam Joseph's user avatar
10 votes
6 answers
3k views

How to hide your own body? [closed]

It's the perfect locked-room mystery: the police find the victim murdered, but the room is locked from the inside. How did the killer escape? He didn't. After committing the murder, the killer ...
mprogrammer's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
134 views

What could be electable positions in the senate of organized crime? [closed]

So I am constructing a decisional body for the world of organized crime in my near future setting. I am basing this on many things, among them the ancient roman senate. Only the most senior members ...
mdlsvensson's user avatar
35 votes
12 answers
8k views

Crime rates in a post-scarcity economy

A post-scarcity civilisation is one where the automatisation of production and a universal basic income system have made it impossible to suffer unwillingly from the lack of means to satisfy the ...
TheDyingOfLight's user avatar
8 votes
16 answers
3k views

How would the world control an invulnerable immortal mass murderer? [closed]

This question came to me after re-watching Jason movies and some Hulk movies. SCP-096 was a huge inspiration as well. Forgive me if this question is silly but I'm curious on how humanity would react ...
malikc6's user avatar
  • 189
-5 votes
2 answers
168 views

A Pyramid Scheme for Terrorism and Crime

There have been many pyramid schemes from commercial scams to chain letters. A single terrorist wants to take over the world. He has a gun and threatens two people that he will kill their families if ...
chasly - supports Monica's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
107 views

What methods would a detective use to solve the murder...of a robot? [closed]

In what ways would it be different from solving a human murder case? And what circumstances would make killing robots a serious offense, even if they don't have rights and are still referred to as ...
VoydDixon's user avatar
  • 551
-1 votes
2 answers
389 views

Medieval travel times [closed]

I read another thread Travel time in Medieval times about this, but I'm still struggling to find a more definitive answer. I have a town suffering from scarce food, due to previous years of crops not ...
boobzilla's user avatar
-1 votes
3 answers
134 views

(Mostly) Legal reason to seize an in-danger minor [closed]

I figure this question belongs here though it definitely has a legal counterpart to it. But since it's fiction and supernatural no less, I didn't think it would make sense to put it in a more legal-...
Mackenzie Bodily's user avatar
31 votes
18 answers
20k views

How to fool a DNA test (for dummies)

It is the year 2000 and Joe has committed a crime in a small town in central Europe. When the police calls all adults living in the area to voluntarily provide a DNA sample, Joe knows he's in trouble. ...
Elmy's user avatar
  • 15.5k
0 votes
7 answers
666 views

How deep can an ordinary human completely bury themselves armed only with a shovel?

In my society, honour is all important. A condemned criminal can recover his or her family's honour by burying themselves alive as a form of suicide. My question is: How deep can an ordinary human be ...
chasly - supports Monica's user avatar
7 votes
12 answers
2k views

How can I track the use of illegal magic?

Orgone is the measure of a person's connection with the cosmos. It is the conduit through which the power of the cosmos flows, focused through a sorcerer's will. Everyone is capable of performing ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
19 votes
7 answers
4k views

How can one individual have two different biological signatures?

A detective is investigating a series of grisly murders in New York. The bodies of the victims seem to have been ripped apart by a inhumanly strong person. He has narrowed down the list of suspects to ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
3 votes
6 answers
688 views

How can a renegade coven recruit its members without being discovered?

This is a follow-up question for this one: How can I preserve the long term cooperation of a witch coven? All people in this world are born with some degree of magical power, which increases through ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
3 votes
2 answers
170 views

How can I prove that an individual was possessed during the act of committing a crime? [closed]

Devils are alive, and walk among us. This has been known to the human civilization ever since the gates to hell opened up, releasing the Devils upon our world. Although the gate was sealed and the ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
9 votes
4 answers
711 views

Would it be possible to distil specific human emotions into an edible drug form?

I am writing a dystopian future where I hope to make it possible that specific emotions can be taken in the form of pills or drug form; or, combined pills taken to form more complex feelings. ...
Sofie's user avatar
  • 91
7 votes
3 answers
256 views

How can a coven of crones operate in anonymity?

There is a ritual that allows a mage to steal the soul of another person. This adds their mana to your own, making your magic more powerful. It also extends your lifespan and makes your physical form ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
42 votes
15 answers
11k views

How can a criminal organization incentivize its employees to do better while keeping its ruthless image?

SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) is a nefarious organization run by me, a criminal mastermind named Ernesto Blofeld. It has its tentacles in many ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
2 votes
2 answers
356 views

Who watches the watchmen?

Background I have a highly industrialized country that is rapidly economically growing, all the while expanding its territory (think along the lines of the USA's territorial expansion between 1820 - ...
Boolean's user avatar
  • 1,829
0 votes
2 answers
449 views

How to detect a "love" potion?

A concoction has been invented that can influence a target to fall in love with an individual. This works in two parts. The user must drink one type of potion to emit certain hormones while the ...
Incognito's user avatar
  • 38.5k
3 votes
2 answers
524 views

Everyone can heal very quickly. How does this impact forensics and criminal investigations?

So the central conceit of my story is that everyone has various superhuman powers in modern day America, and one of the powers that everyone has is a superhuman healing factor. Anything we'd classify ...
Simon Price's user avatar
  • 5,151
3 votes
11 answers
318 views

Of replicators and postage stamps

It is my assumption that the development of Star-Trek style replicators would cause enormous problems for paper or other physical money/currency or any form of physical object of assigned value. In ...
JBH's user avatar
  • 122k
3 votes
2 answers
155 views

Do hostage situation procedures allow for a heist like this? [closed]

I'd like to split this into two questions, to a degree, although one is entirely dependent on the other. Let's say that a group of criminals are trying to rob a place (either a bank or a jewelry store)...
Grizzly's user avatar
  • 177
-2 votes
7 answers
2k views

Can we build a world that is crime-free? [closed]

If we send a whole bunch of people that are highly educated and all have a well-guided moral compass to a distant world, No one commits any crime There is no any mention of any crime After a few ...
Yu Zhang's user avatar
  • 129
7 votes
5 answers
348 views

Keeping the Butchers together

A group of space criminals collectively known as the Butchers is gathering enough power to be considered as a serious threat. Although they are nowhere near as powerful as the two major space empires, ...
Nick's user avatar
  • 5,283
1 vote
0 answers
150 views

In the US, how closely are people who die in a fire investigated? [closed]

Let's say a house burns down and there's a body in the house. The body is badly damaged but roughly matches the sole inhabitant of the house. How much effort is typically required to ensure the body ...
samguyjones's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
434 views

What kind of poisons could be used in a hospital setting?

In my crime thriller, one of my characters is killed while recovering from a subdural hematoma in the hospital. What kind of poison could be injected into her IV that would cause her organs to shut ...
Hollie Overton's user avatar
2 votes
5 answers
897 views

What legal action will be taken on me if I kill the alternate myself from other reality? [closed]

so another me from alternate reality comes to meet me and I had to kill him for some reasons and I'm caught by the police. Following scenario takes place in US and our world is unaware of alternate ...
McGucket's user avatar
  • 699
5 votes
4 answers
18k views

What's the stealthiest way to knock someone out? [closed]

A sneaky character needs to incapacitate someone. It's a sensitive situation, so this must be done quickly, quietly, and reliably. The target is a healthy human adult. Killing the target is highly ...
spraff's user avatar
  • 2,209
-1 votes
5 answers
186 views

Small flying drones with firearms are legal [closed]

In this hypothetical world which is very similar to our world, small drones carrying light firearms (think handgun) are made legal. They were first mostly used as home security systems. They fly ...
Fred's user avatar
  • 4,146
22 votes
7 answers
5k views

How to catch a Faceless Man?

Imagine that in modern world, a Faceless Man of Braavos is walking among us. He is able to completely change his appearance in a split second, and, unfortunately, keeps killing people. Would it be ...
Alexander's user avatar
  • 42.2k
8 votes
3 answers
1k views

What if hell is real... by necromancy?

This story set in a medieval world, where necromancy is forbidden by law, but openly deployed by the church to simulate hell. There is a dedicated pool of fire just below the church of this kingdom, ...
Vylix's user avatar
  • 10.9k
1 vote
5 answers
383 views

What would cause a modern society to discount a real-world, happening-in-plain-sight conspiracy?

Where conspiracy is defined as: an agreement between persons who intend to gain some collective advantage while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it. ...
rodentry's user avatar
  • 371
-2 votes
2 answers
136 views

Unidentifiable body [closed]

A man is under interrogation: he is a suspect in the case of his ex. She has disappeared a couple of weeks ago, and around the same time the police has found the remainders nearby. Surely, it is not ...
SBF's user avatar
  • 229
10 votes
3 answers
927 views

How can elemental magic aid forensic in a magical murder?

The ideal murder weapon is probably an icicle, because then you can melt the evidence Well, it's far from perfect. At least when magic kicks in. The story is set in this modern world, with elemental ...
Vylix's user avatar
  • 10.9k
1 vote
3 answers
171 views

How to track down a killer who can steal DNA using 21st century science? [closed]

Let's say that a youth had been bitten by a radioactive octopus and gained an ability to temporarily splice the host DNA with one or more foreign DNAs. Below is a general breakdown of how this special ...
user6760's user avatar
  • 47.9k
34 votes
22 answers
13k views

How to prevent invisible people from committing crimes?

The year is 2020, 98% of the world population are normal people with normal skills, two percent (2%) are people who have the ability to become invisible at will. The majority of the invisible people ...
Gustavo Gabriel's user avatar
46 votes
23 answers
13k views

Can I reduce the crime rate by penalizing criminals' children socially?

This is a social engineering method. The government takes background checks very seriously. A person's moral standing is not only determined by the actions of the person themselves, but also by his/...
Haha TTpro's user avatar
  • 3,077
2 votes
4 answers
462 views

How far would information about a criminal spread in Medieval times?

One of my characters is an assassin and mercenary. He's killed plenty of nobles and participated in a couple wars all across the continent. For the story to work, I need other criminals to know who he ...
whyiszzzsleeping's user avatar
17 votes
9 answers
7k views

Can estrogen be used to lower the criminal rate of a civilization?

I'm imagining a civilization trying to lower the criminal rate as low as possible in order to become a peaceful place. Suppose the criminal rate of that virtual civilization currently is not awfully ...
Gstestso's user avatar
  • 2,207
37 votes
9 answers
10k views

How to organize crime?

A middle income country with weak institutions, which is heavily dependent on tourism and trade for its foreign currency, has a problem with rising crime rates. There are many petty criminals from ...
Top5AtLeast's user avatar
16 votes
10 answers
3k views

How can you punish someone without causing suffering? [closed]

Imagine a world where any human suffering caused by other humans creates demons in the world. A cruel word may spawn a mischievous sprite. A murder may create a prowler that would crawl the streets ...
Andrey's user avatar
  • 5,042
28 votes
15 answers
4k views

Can crime still exist if mages can see the past?

In my world one of the branches of magic is Sight; foresight, farsight and hindsight. Foresight is basically the gift of prophecy. It's limited in that the world doesn't exist in a fixed timeline, so ...
adaliabooks's user avatar
  • 12.7k
5 votes
2 answers
191 views

Freelance detectives

Bad guys will do bad things, no matter how far in the future we go to. Even with space travel and other lifeforms to live alongside humanity, crime will rear its ugly head no anywhere, anytime. So ...
Adlo's user avatar
  • 131
14 votes
5 answers
2k views

Could this villainous urban development scheme be easily detected?

THE SCENARIO: I've been inspired by shows like The Shield and The Wrong Mans to come up with my own (even more flamboyantly evil) development scheme, to use as the backdrop for the action in a low sci-...
Random's user avatar
  • 5,986
11 votes
13 answers
16k views

Which businesses/industries can easily and efficiently launder money? [closed]

In a world roughly like ours, I have $millions per year, variable, in illegal income that I want to launder through a legitimate business. I want to be able to scale the business up and down to fit ...
spraff's user avatar
  • 2,209
1 vote
7 answers
818 views

Criminal justice if people could live arbitrarily long lives

In modern society the main punishment for a crime is either imprisonment or financial penalty. Even if you're a billionaire, a 20 year prison sentence isn't something to brush off, and a large fine ...
Stilez's user avatar
  • 6,855
6 votes
4 answers
787 views

An unusual crime-and-punishment scenario - is it plausible?

In this scenario, there is a particular regime wherein the punishment for any and all violent crime is the same- a single gash to the neck. Upon pronouncement of guilt by the crown or a recognized ...
cobaltduck's user avatar
  • 8,615
10 votes
6 answers
501 views

Surveillance: Big Brother Is Watching

Say there was a totalitarian regime that controlled 1 billion people. The GDP is ~$50,000 per capita. This regime has nigh on total control over them, however, rebels are still considered a serious ...
Razmode's user avatar
  • 2,458