Crime

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Gang-buster bill gets dissed

A controversial legislative proposal developed by a secretive police group would send an individual to prison for up to 40 years if he or she is convicted of asking someone to join a criminal street gang.
Tattoos As A Criminal Act
By LANCE TAPLEY | January 27, 2012

Law & Disorder: The Best of Last Semester's Campus Crime Logs

Incident logs available online and/or at campus police stations display laundry lists of amateur-hour escapades and bike/backpack/wallet/gadget thefts. Here are some amusing, singular shenanigans and trends from last semester culled from public records
Best time of your life? Hardly. Behold these stunning antics, ripped straight from the campus crime blotters.
By BARRY THOMPSON | January 27, 2012

Review: The Devil Inside

William Brent Bell's film opens with a disclaimer that "the Vatican does not endorse this movie." No kidding — the Catholic Church isn't exactly known for its sense of humor.
William Brent Bell's limp mockumentary
By ALEXANDRA CAVALLO | January 13, 2012

Review: Into the Abyss

From the abyss of time in Cave of Forgotten Dreams , Werner Herzog turns to the abyss of capital punishment in today's America.
Werner Herzog turns to the abyss of capital punishment
By PETER KEOUGH | November 11, 2011

Podcast: The Art of the Wire with Prop Joe, Marlo, Poot, and George Pelecanos

There he was: DONNIE ANDREWS, whom most Wire-heads know as "the real Omar." (Even bigger Wire-heads will tell you that Omar is a composite, but...
By Carly Carioli | October 17, 2011

Hollow justice

When Whitey Bulger was arrested in Santa Monica, California, this summer, it may have seemed that a new day had dawned for the local FBI and for the Justice Department.
The FBI might have got its man, but anyone seeking real accountability from Whitey Bulger's government enablers will come away empty-handed yet again
By DAVID BOERI | October 07, 2011

Gangs, Inc.: A special report

This story was originally published in the April 27, 1990, issue of the Boston Phoenix.
Mergers & mayhem
By SEAN FLYNN AND RIC KAHN | October 07, 2011

Review: Killer Elite

First Point Blank and now Killer Elite — isn't there a copyright law about stealing the titles of a better movie? Gary McEndry's espionage thriller isn't bad, but it isn't Peckinpah; all the two films have in common are the title and lots of shootin
Narrative confusion
By PETER KEOUGH | September 23, 2011

Trinity Rep’s rip-roaring His Girl Friday

There are theatrical adaptations and then there are magnificent transformations, like His Girl Friday . Multiple-Obie Award-winning playwright John Guare has expanded the furious screwball comedy into a historical/social commentary without our losing o
The write stuff
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | September 23, 2011

Young activists explore police department

There are three streets in Portland that police lieutenant Janine Roberts won't walk down alone, learned a group of interested citizens organized by the League of Young Voters on a visit to the Portland Police Department last Wednesday.
Portland 101
By JEFF INGLIS | September 23, 2011

Review: Circumstance

Circumstance begins like an early Kiarostami film, but with schoolgirls in hijabs instead of schoolboys in sweaters.
Schoolgirls in hijabs
By ANN LEWINSON | September 09, 2011

Review: The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan

An investigative doc brimming with cultural resonance and historical savvy, Henry Corra's film has ahold of a pungent story — that of the titular black Texan fella who vanished in Vietnam 40 years ago.
Rich in mysteries
By MICHAEL ATKINSON | September 02, 2011

Review: Chasing Madoff

Few will dispute the evil avarice behind the $50 billion Ponzi scheme Bernie Madoff masterminded.
Jeff Prosserman's documentary
By TOM MEEK | August 26, 2011

RI Strikes at Google

Well, if you think Google is evil, you have reason to be pleased with your home state today. Rhode Island US Attorney Peter Neronha has announced...
By David Scharfenberg | August 24, 2011

How a Rembrandt wound up on a pig farm

The next time you're bored on a Friday night and considering a caper at the RISD Museum, Anthony Amore wants you to consider this: you're more likely to make a few bucks begging the high school crowd on Thayer Street.
Stealing Beauty
By DANIEL MCGOWAN | August 12, 2011

ACLU Warns of Limits on Public Records Access

Journalists and open-records advocates sharply criticized the state police last year and early this year for a new set of guidelines that, they argued, placed unwarranted limits...
By David Scharfenberg | August 09, 2011

Review: If a Tree Falls

Director Marshall Curry's If a Tree Falls tells the full tale of the ELF's genesis in Oregon, and of the group's badass campaign of "economic sabotage" that left more than 1200 symbols of bourgeois excess (a Vail ski resort, an SUV dealership) burned to
A ggressive hippies
By CHRIS FARAONE | July 29, 2011

Busy Monsters

STUNNED BY LOVE and some would say stupid from too much sex, I decided I had to drive down South to kill a man.
Chapter 1, excerpted from the novel by William Giraldi
By WILLIAM GIRALDI | July 22, 2011

Curbing corruption with a catch-all

Sal DiMasi is no saint, but that doesn't mean he's a criminal. His behavior makes us grimace, but it simply doesn't amount to a state or federal felony.
Vague Justice?
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | June 24, 2011

The Garden City Boys

The murder conviction of Nicholas Gianquitti, a Cranston man who shot and killed his next-door neighbor Jim Pagano in a dispute over a child's stray...
By David Scharfenberg | June 17, 2011

Corporate prison bill 'carried over'

Although LD 690, A BILL TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR "EXILED" PRISONERS TO RETURN TO MAINE , was killed May 6 by the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee, political activist Ron Huber, who had pushed it, declared "victory in Augusta" on his Facebook page.
Inmate Exile Dept.
By LANCE TAPLEY | May 13, 2011

Review: Henry's Crime

If you had to compare it to a Russian classic, Malcolm Venville's mild comedy about a nobody (Keanu Reeves) who gets busted for a crime he didn't commit might suggest half-baked Dostoevsky or lightweight Gogol.
False conviction
By PETER KEOUGH | April 22, 2011

A bankrobber downsizes

There's nothing like an art heist to make a journalist spout hyperbole.
Annals of Crime
By JOHN LARRABEE | April 15, 2011

At a turning point

When Joseph Ponte was told that Maine's longtime corrections commissioner Martin Magnusson had once informed the Legislature's Criminal Justice Committee, after a dramatic hostage-taking, that there were "probably 300 inmates right now with a weapon in
LePage's nominee to head Corrections has the skills to fix Maine's broken prison system. Will the governor and lawmakers give Joseph Ponte the tools?
By LANCE TAPLEY | February 11, 2011

Three-point stance

With Green Bay and Pittsburgh squaring off on Super Bowl Sunday, three things about the current state of pro football keep occurring to me that I'd like to share with you, gentle reader.
Balls, pucks, and monster trucks
By RICK WORMWOOD | January 28, 2011

Review: The Murder Trial of John Gordon at the Park Theatre

Who knew? Everybody knows about that frisky, independent start by Roger Williams, and the first bloodshed of the American Revolution with the burning of the Gaspee , but who knows about the dispute between the lowly immigrant Gordon family and the pres
Trial from another era
By BILL RODRIGUEZ | January 21, 2011

Kilmartin Retains Key AG Staff

Attorney General-elect Peter Kilmartin has announced that he is hanging on to some key staffers from the Patrick Lynch era - Deputy Attorney General Gerald...
By David Scharfenberg | November 18, 2010

Food fights

At least it wasn't a home invasion.
Marshall football orders out, and Rick Pitino regrets getting table service
By MATT TAIBBI | August 13, 2010

Unsafe Passage: The dangers of getting to and from the job

One evening in February, Sara left her State Street office building shortly after six o'clock to walk to her car. As she put the key in the lock of the car door, a man grabbed her from behind and hissed in her ear, "Get in the car."
Equal Writes
By SUSAN STOBAUGH | July 09, 2010

Sports blotter: In the rough

Another day, another New York sports icon fends off a rape allegation.
Did Johan Santana go out of bounds? Plus, LT's self-abuse defense falls short.
By MATT TAIBBI | July 02, 2010

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