Crime Monthly: Must Reads Feb 2025
This month: Jack the Ripper's DNA, True Crime shows, Criminology and more News!
We really enjoy finding other writers and posts on Substack and think this makes this platform unique. Since we started, we have read many impressive columns and felt we would share some of our favorites with you.
1. Class Surges as a Factor in Who Goes to Prison
The Harvard Gazette published an article that shared recent findings indicating that class (and education) play a more significant role in who gets imprisoned. The researchers found incarceration rates decreased for black Americans and soared for white Americans without a college education.
2. Jack The Ripper’s DNA.
Over the month there have been several articles (AUNews, VICE, Newsweek, that claim that new DNA evidence suggests that Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper. A shall allegedly had blood from the victim and the killer and this DNA has been compared to Kosminski’s living relatives. We are unsure about what this new evidence is, given that similar DNA tests were published back in 2019 and this conclusion was disputed in a reputable scientific publication. An article on Medium further problematized the findings, thus showing that the killer’s identity remains unknown (even questioning that the DNA was part of the crime scene).
3. Sambre - A predator in plain sight
Earlier this month,
provided commentary on crimes and investigations. This review of Sambre - a BBC dramatic representation of a criminal case in a small village in France - argued that true crime shows can keep victims at the center and highlight real issues. Short and interesting read from .
4. Call for a Complex Criminology
An insightful data-driven reflection on Crime.
argued that criminology often ignores macro changes in crime and crime prevention strategies. He stated “The way we think about crime influences the way we address it. We think about it far too narrowly. We need to broaden our lens — and then adapt our policy approaches accordingly.”One More Thing
Over the past months, the conversations on Substack have been insightful, and we’ve been moved by people’s kindness and willingness to engage. The exchange of ideas, the deep dives into history, crime, and justice have been nothing short of inspiring. But we don’t just want to tell our own stories—we want to celebrate other writers and thinkers. We want to take this further.
That’s why we’re launching a new feature: a once-a-month conversation with a creator, writer, or historian who is shaping how we think about these big questions. First up?
, a historian whose work on 19th-century inquests and forgotten crime narratives brings the past to life in surprising and unsettling ways.This is just the beginning. Stay tuned.
Thank you for reading, we would really love to hear from you. You can like, comment, subscribe, ask questions. This post is an experiment, we think it is a valuable one. We will repeat this, at least two other times. Then we will make a decision on whether to continue or try something new!
Great post!