Talk:Perfect crime

perfect crime versus unsolved crime

Do not add JonBenet and rappers to this list, they do not meet the criteria, those are simply unsolved crimes. Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 04:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Religious point of view

The religious point of view is perfectly irrelevant in this article, no matter how true or false it might be. If one is religiously inclined, he could well insert a similar paragraph in each possible article (say, in Artichoke, one could say what artichokes mean in a religious view of the world). This article covers a legal concept (and its fictional counterpart). Goochelaar (talk) 23:16, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Below is the text that I suggest will replace the current lede in the article. Read it carefully; it has been generalized to deal with the colloquial aspects that derive from a religious view of not just "crime," but the notion that such crimes may inconsequential, let alone considered as "perfect:"

A perfect crime is a colloquialism indicating a concept that a crime can be inconsequential —that a perpetator can escape or has escaped all consequence —no trials, judgments, or punishments. Such crimes are typically attributed to sufficient planning and skill such that no evidence is apparent, and as such that there is no conceivable way that a perpetrator will ever face the justice of human law. The term can also be used to characterize an "unknown crime" —ie. one that remains undetected after commission. Similarly, in procedural law, some scenarios lack sufficient evidence to conclusively determine if any crime has in fact been committed, preventing these from becoming active criminal investigations or cases.

Where philosophical and religious concepts are considered, the term "perfect crime" is simply an oxymoron, because God is thought to be all-knowing and administers judgment and (if appropriate) punishment., According to this view, there have never been nor can there ever be any "perfect crime."

We are not talking about artichokes or even rutabagas. You may be in the wrong grocery aisle. -Stevertigo 23:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. I believe that the first paragraph of the lead as you have rewritten it is a definite improvement on the present lead. On the other hand I believe that the "In philosophical and religious term..." is out of place. Here we are dealing, as you correctly write, with a very specific sense of "perfect", that is, undetected by police, judges and so on. Sorry if you found the artichoke joke offensive, but when dealing with legal terms, I believe it is not necessary to remember in each case what various philosophies and religions say about them. For instance, most of them condemn serial killers and burglars, but those articles are not the place to cover this: there are articles about the different ethic, moral and religious system to discuss this.

(And, I must admit, I did not know rutabagas. One always learn something!)

Happy editing, Goochelaar (talk) 08:02, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate the thoughtful response. As you agree that the first paragraph is a "definite improvement" I have posted it to the article. With regard to the second paragraph, there are a few points to make:

1. You wrote: "I believe that the 'In philosophical and religious term[s]...' [paragraph] is out of place." If you say it is "out of place," does that mean you don't object to the substance in the paragraph, what other "place" do you suggest for it? At the bottom, somewhere? If your issue is that you accept the text of the article, but disagree only with its placement in the lede, please say so.
2. You wrote: "Here we are dealing, as you correctly write, with a very specific sense of "perfect", that is, undetected by police, judges and so on" [..] "but when dealing with legal terms, I believe it is not necessary to remember in each case what various philosophies and religions say about them."' Well, note that the first link in the new lede we just agreed on is "colloquialism", not "legal term" or even "law enforcement term." I never said anything about "a very specific sense," IIRC, only that the term has a few more dimensions, which weve are dealing with, other than its face value. Note that in the philosophy section, it goes on to use the word oxymoron (in two dimensions), which adds a very interesting dimension to the concept, IMHO, even if it is just the opinion of 97% of the planet that believes in either God or karma.
3. Continuing: My sense is, and you are free to disagree, that the term "perfect crime" is *rarely used in law enforcement, and even *less so among legal professionals. True? Let's look into it. When it is used in contexts that don't fall under *atheism, or *cheezy/tacky crime novels, it appears to have a small aspect of *ironic usage, wherin it is used as a colloquialism —fully understanding its oxymoronic value.
4. You wrote: "For instance, most of them condemn serial killers and burglars, but those articles are not the place to cover this: there are articles about the different ethic, moral and religious system to discuss this." Even in the burgulary article, we don't typically go into how much hell they are going to get when they pass on. We can however state that religious views consider theft to be a sin, and that it supports human law that punishes such offenses. Nothing controversial there.
5. You wrote: "Sorry if you found the artichoke joke offensive" - I did not find it offensive. I simply found it to be a sign that you were not quite engaged in dealing with the subject matter yet. -Stevertigo 08:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
6. PS: I have rewritten the second paragraph (above) a bit. Please take a look. -Stevertigo 08:44, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
7. PPS: The second paragraph can be condensed to a sentence, which could fit at the end of the first paragraph (with the 'unknown crime' and 'lack of evidence' parts moved down): "According to a religious view, there are no perfect crimes, simply because God is all-knowing, and punishes all sin in the afterlife."

References

2

I hope to answer most of your points, albeit concisely. By "out of place" I meant that, in my opinion, this article as a whole is not the place for moral, philosophical or religious remarks, just as I believe that other - more or less technical - legal articles aren't. In the articles about moral and religious systems, on the other hand, a complete covering about what is allowed, encouraged, condemned by those systems is of course desirable.

You are right, of course, that this is not a *formal* legal term, but what I meant is, this article covers a well-defined meaning of the adjective "perfect" and I am sure no reader will construe it as meaning that the act described here is "perfect" kind of conduct.

More in general, although your remarks about the oxymoric nature of the notion of a perfect crime are interesting, I am not too delighted about a paragraph about moral aspects unless you can find a reliable source explicitly covering "perfect crimes" in those terms, lest it be considered an instance of original research.

Thanks for your clearer and more complete lead. Goochelaar (talk) 19:12, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Goochelaar, thank you for your excellent points. I will deal with them shortly.

• You wrote: "in my opinion, this article as a whole is not the place for moral, philosophical or religious remarks, just as I believe that other - more or less technical - legal articles aren't." - I am currently drafting an essay on conceptualization versus taxonomical atomization or something to that effect. I have been here for seven years, and I often find articles with particular terminology that have zero linkage to related concepts; often they don't even bother to link to the general concept. That is mainly why I rewrote the WP:LEDE policy to suggest to people how they can write heavily conceptualized and crosslinked ledes, such that people get the concept right away, and if they want to they can get into the particulars down lower. (That is also why I reject an exclusionary interpretation of disambiguation policy against writing definitions of terms; every term has a definition, and including a short one-sentence definition in our disambiguations is just plain common sense explanationism).

What I wind up doing is things like tying together disparate but related concepts; crosslinking, pointing out where such concepts are similar or even identical to other concepts described by different terms, etc. I'll often even add an overview topicbox and, if I'm feeling up to it, I'll write a conceptual overview article that basically just outlines the general idea, and links to the varied, scattered, colloquial, formalized, proprietary and even ridiculous terms, where such ideas are prominent.

This kind of modality might be described by a term like "conceptualization" — the distillation of concepts, disregarding the cultural distinctions like language and tradition, and deal with just the general idea and how different people deal with it. So, in my view, there are two opposing camps; we often call them inclusionists and the rejectionists; but in reality there are conceptualists who like to deal with ideas in their raw form, and taxonomists who like the idea of having fifteen different articles for the same damn thing.

• You wrote: "You are right, of course, that this is not a *formal* legal term." Yes, but that is the way you appeared to describe it. I had to correct you on that point. And yet you say "this article covers a well-defined meaning of the adjective "perfect"". This of course is being far to particular, such that rejects *conceptualization. It also is not actually true; the term "perfect" has a particular and peculiar meaning when attached to the word "crime." Is there such a thing as a "perfect war" a "perfect murder," a "perfect rape," a "perfect genocide?" Of course not, and these terms may make its oxymoronic aspects quite plain. I simply pointed out the pious religious concept that God will literally fuck someone up if they rape or murder someone. I don't think he cares much about stealing though.
• You also express an assumption: "I am sure no reader will construe it as meaning that the act described here is "perfect" kind of conduct." That meaing is unfortunatly inherent in the term, as you appear to be promoting it.
• You say "although your remarks about the oxymoric nature of the notion of a perfect crime are interesting" - Why are they interesting? Consider also that if they are "interesting," they are also quite relevant and therefore need to be included.
• You say "I am not too delighted about a paragraph about moral aspects unless you can find a reliable source explicitly covering "perfect crimes" in those terms" - That again is being rejectionist and counter-conceptual. Consider that the term "perfect crime" originates from 19th century crime novels, or some such. Its not something that would be mentioned in the Bible, or in serious legal contexts for that matter (which should also be interesting). In fact there are plenty of other morally relevant concepts which are indeed modern concepts, but nevertheless have relevance to religion. Abortion is one, though I must agree that that issue can easily be overrun by religious people who themselves might not understand the concept very well either.
• We are not going to have an article "about [the] moral and religious" aspects of the "perfect crime" concept. We can however deal with all of the dimensions of the "perfect crime" concept; its usage, its etymology, its deployment, etc.
• "lest it be considered an instance of original research" - I understand that you want to make a stand here, and saying that you will shout "fire" if you don't get your way is certainly one way to do that, but saying that religion and morality 'have no relevance' to crime (even heinous ones) then I don't know what to say other than you are under some particularly narrow misconception about what articles are supposed to do. "Explain stuff" — that's my motto. -Stevertigo 00:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Again on the religious remarks

Please, Stevertigo, we already have discussed this. I am sure that the religious point of view has nothing to do with an article like this, even less so in the terms you put it (who is "God"? the Christian one? the Jewish one? the Islamic one? any of those of a polytheistic or pantheistic view of the world? what does "commonly conceived" mean?). If you do not agree, let us bring this where a third opinion or a mediation can be given us. (And please, do not mark this kind of edits as "minor" ones.) Goochelaar (talk) 09:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Goochelaar, I understand that "discussion" involves actual discussion. I left the comment above for you. It deals with several points. You did not respond to any of them. Therefore I say you have not fulfilled an accurate definition of "we have [..] discussed this," nor does your usage of "already," to give an inaccurate impression that our discussion was closed, impress me. Please respond to the points above, and I will deal with them in substance. Thanks. -Stevertigo 20:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I have restored my text dealing with the religious point of view. It has been a full day since the above exchange and yet you still have not responded to either that or to the text above. Please do engage me in discussion, before imposing your views upon the article. Thanks for your cooperation, -Stevertigo 05:41, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how 20:18 of 26 April to 5:41 of 27 April qualify as a "full day". Anyhow, I am glad you are interested in my opinions, as your previous remarks about my "particularly narrow misconception about what articles are supposed to do" made my suppose differently. Actually, we did discuss this, as in "we exchanged opinions about this subject", if not as in "we covered every last facet of it". I have expressed my perspective and my main arguments supporting it. I am afraid I have not the leisure to examine it in further depth: this is one of the reasons why I am suggesting we look for further opinions. Thanks, Goochelaar (talk) 07:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

(Other opinions) That is fine, and please do solicit some. It would of course lend support to your argument if you could deal with each and all (or even any) of the points I made in the section above. It also would help if you retitled this thread from something other than "again [with] the religious remarks," as you will agree that we have not really completed our discussion yet, for the simple reason that you have neither 1) responded to the several points above, or 2) conceded. Of course, getting extra eyes is fine, but you will still have to deal with the points above. Thanks, -Stevertigo 19:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. Goochelaar (talk) 22:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Third opinion re: religious perspective

The religious perspective as introduced here is completely inappropriate for this article. Its inclusion is wholly original research, per WP:OR. If there had been, say, an influential sermon about the subject by some famous religious figure, or if a church mentioned it in one of their foundational tenets, that would be another story. Dictionary listings of 'hell' and 'omniscience' used as references do not qualify here as supporting the religious perspective; they would only be suited to the Hell and Omniscience pages. Binksternet (talk) 22:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

You seem to know a lot about this terminology. Can you explain to me a full or even partial etymology of the term "perfect crime?" Thanks, -Stevertigo 07:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

It would be interesting to find the first instance in literature of the phrase "perfect crime". I don't have a copy of the OED, so I can't find out right now. Where will such an investigation lead, and how will it affect the religious perspective that you introduced here? Until you are able to establish an historic connection between religion and the concept of "perfect crime", your additions will not be appropriate. Binksternet (talk) 13:19, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I understand your point — that religious views are broad and therefore can be applied to anything. Therefore an encyclopedia that has largely secular concepts must be diligent in keeping out or fending off the natural tendency of religious concepts to be overapplied to everything. I agree with this view. The concept of a "perfect crime" however, regardless of what its etymology is, is directly and oxymoronically self-contradictory in any context where belief in God is even the least bit relevant. For a religious person, this "God context" is inescapable. For an atheist, this "God context" is nonexistent.

For a secularist, this "God context" is defined largely by who considers it to be valid —not whether its factual or not. The number of "believing" or else religious people in the world is somewhere around 95%. Or, put another way, 9.5 out of 10 people, or else 19 out of 20 people. Does this number affect Wikipedia? It does. This is not the "atheist-pedia" or for that matter the "believers-pedia" — its the "open encyclopedia," written by people for people. What some here appear to suggest, and I'm not sure if you're one of them, Bink, is that our encyclopedia follow the atheist or agnostic concepts, rather than the secular concepts. I suggest including all concepts, which to me at least fits with NPOV quite nicely. Taking an atheistic side is nothing more than POV-pushing OR, anyway you slice it.

Granted, the concept of a "perfect crime" is largely an atheistic one, and therefore out of the domain of religious views on God. Fair enough. But in this case, it needs to be mentioned that this is a largely an atheistic concept —ie. a concept based on a denial, rejection, or else ignorance of God — and as such should be indicated as such. We could write a whole separate article on what God thinks of "perfect crime," but that would be as unnecessary and unencyclopedic as would be a rejection of any theological view from every article. Any atheist can come up with some peculiar and interesting concept of crime and sin and say "this has nothing to do with God" —which is of course not to say that the concept of "perfect crime" is meaningless, just that it only has meaning outside of a religious view and within very narrow contexts like colloquial usage and crime novels. A paragraph on the religious point of view doesn't hurt the encyclopedia and in fact gives the article greater depth and illumination. It is only by direct unfortunate coincidence that the mere mention of a supreme sin-punishing (if not crime-stopping) being here makes the entire concept of "perfect crime" look entirely ignorant. -Stevertigo 18:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Scholarship is common to the best of both religious and non-religious thought. I recommend we follow the path of the scholar here, and locate an important sermon or essay, one that had a wide effect, which proves that the concept of "perfect crime" has been addressed by religious experts. Absent that, this article will stay out of the business of religion. Binksternet (talk) 19:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me, its late, and both of you are being rather uncool with me, so I'll be blunt: I agree that scholarship is wonderful. Now please go be a scholar and look up the etymology of the term "perfect crime," since you insist that there is a particularly narrow and terminological boundary for inclusion of any relevant concepts. You object to the theological ones; you must certainly also object to any other ones that don't fit your view. I, on the other hand, am a conceptualist; if you say "potato," I say "carbohydrate" and "food crop." You appear to be saying that "potato chip" is some arcane special form of "potato," such that, in your world (worlds, including the two others here), even mentioning "carbohydrate" or "couch potato" is somehow improper. Indeed, I said it before - your concept that religion and God are not relevant here is original research/ POV and nothing else. Regards, -Stevertigo 08:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Can you provide a reference to writings actually on the topic of a religious view of a "perfect crime"? The references given in the (currently reverted) text seem to me to be a textbook example of what Wikipedia defines as Original Research - synthesis of "information from multiple sources to reach a conclusion that is not stated explicitly by any of the sources". --Stormie (talk) 03:31, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

See above. And while you're at it you can help Bink find an etymology for this "perfect crime" terminology he says (and you too apparently) has so rigorous a definition and so formal a meaning that even a general religious concept that deals with sin and consequence somehow doesn't fit anywhere, let alone here. The burden is upon Bink, you and the prior partisan to establish that this context is especially scientific, or else has a rigourous definition, such that excludes theology. In fact, even mentioning that fact of course introduces the theology dimension — which serves my purpose here in making the article more complete, and forcing any dissenting editors here to deal with it ("it" being serious subject matter that belies the trivial nature of this article concept). In any case the article has next to nothing with regard to sources, anyway, so deal with that first, before you 'call the kettle black.' Thanks for your concerns, -Stevertigo 08:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It was my understanding of wikipedia that it is the inclusion of material that requires citation, not the exclusion of material. Therefore, Stevertigo, the onus is on you as the editor keen to include the philosophical/theological concepts to find evidence to support what so far looks like WP:OR. You might point out that the rest of the article is poorly cited but I don't think that the rest of it is being argued over, so that is a secondary issue for now. However, I think the trail of thought is interesting and worthy of inclusion if found to be notable and so I had a 10 minute look for sources myself online. I didn't turn up much but towards the bottom of this search I found a link to Re-writing modernity which google picks up as:

Re-writing modernity

JF Lyotard - SubStance, 1987 - jstor.org
... That is the reason why there is no "perfect crime," no crime capable of remaining
unknown ... Now let's turn to philosophy. Nietzsche strove to emancipate his way ...
Cited by 16 - Related articles - Web Search - All 3 versions

I can't access it any further but might be a useful starting point. Cheers, Bigger digger (talk) 11:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Also this article might be of interest, although I don't know if it could be worked into the article. Bigger digger (talk) 13:41, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I do not think that the latter would be a worthy addition to the article: the homicide of Marta Russo gave rise to a great commotion in Italy (see the Italian article as well as the German one) and to several hypotheses, rumours and so on. One of many was the idea of a "perfect crime", but it was not heard any more in the later phases of the process. The main defendant was found guilty of manslaughter. Goochelaar (talk) 15:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's a more complete link to page 27 of The inhuman, by Jean François Lyotard and Geoffrey Bennington. To me, it looks like a fine philosophical discussion. Lyotard's writing includes these other mentions of "perfect crime": Heidegger and "the Jews" and The differend. No religion, but discussion, yes. Binksternet (talk) 15:31, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Goochelaar, sorry, I wasn't being too discriminating in finding sources just helpful, it was notable as mentioning "philosophy" and "perfect crime". I read the article, seems like a bit of a mess all round. Binksternet, thanks for remembering Google books, Lyotard seems to have some interesting things to say. Bigger digger (talk) 18:14, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Bigger digger, I did not mean to criticise you: just to point out that that particular mention of a perfect crime doesn't seem to me too relevant. I'll ask to a friend expert in crime fiction if he knows about the first occurrences of the phrase in fiction. Goochelaar (talk) 21:56, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

cont.

Again there appears to be this taxonomy-esque concept that just because "perfect crime" has "perfect" attached to it, the term somehow has no direct relevance to "crime," and, less directly, "sin."

I'm still just trying to get you people to link this concept of "perfect crime" to "crime." When that's done, the link to "sin" is obvious. The crime -> sin relation is not without varied and idiosyncratic differences. But the inherent assertions within "perfect crime" alone open the door wide to theology, because "perfect crime" is in fact saying some interesting things about "sin." That 'sin doesn't exist,' for one.

On another note, we don't allow adjectives like "perfect" to distinguish particular concepts from parent concepts anyway. Can you think of an article which is conceptualized that way? "Perfect" is just a glorification (ie. a particularly glorifying type of adjective) and thus its just an adjective. Even worse, its a superlative, which I suppose is the generalization in which "glorifying adjective" fits under. There are no significant semantic distinctions between "perfect crime" and "crime."

People can come up with other fancy terms, each of which might simply be called "a glorified concept of crime." Would you define "great crime," "wonderful crime," "terrific crime," "happy crime" (well, that one at least has idiomatic possibilities), any differently from any other "[superlative] crime?"

Let's look at it the other way: if someone wanted to write an article on "wicked crime," "evil crime," or "really really bad crime;" aside from the deletionist option, the proper action would simply be to redirect to crime. Let's test this theory by using inverse controls: In the term "sexual crime," "sexual" is not an adjective; it has a categorical semantic meaning that distinguishes a crime as being "sexual" in nature, and generalizes all such crimes as belonging within that concept. The proper conceptual English term is not "sexy crime;" though it seems to be a rather good example of a glorifying adjective.

One of you could take a week or two and write a trashy crime novel, centering around the concept of a "specialized crime," and using that term several dozen times every four chapters. If Wikipedia is to deal with it at all, we would have to at least put it into the context that boils down to something like:

"Specialized crime: A term written by a crime novelist that indicates a concept so specialized and removed from its parent concept (crime) such as to be totally meaningless outside of this context, regardless of how the author describes it."

It follows from the above tests that the article should be written with more substance. Its a good thing then that some of the substance I added to the lede regarding the conceptual and anti-consequentialism aspects have not been totally destroyed by the bland rewrites. Regards, -Stevertigo 17:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Stevertigo, I've looked up through the conversation again and keep coming to the same conclusion: you need to provide sources that are acceptable to wikipedia to support your arguments. It is not for editors to make the intellectual "leap" from crime to sin, it is for an editor to find a verifiable, notable source that can form the basis of part of the article that makes clear this step. Every time someone brings that up you seem to move the conversation onto a different path. Do you understand that you need to find sources to back up your writing? I would be more than happy to support your additions if suitably backed up, and myself and Binksternet have tried to source some for you above. You seem to spend a lot of time writing impressive essays on this talk page, which seems like a waste of your talents when you could be gathering sources and improving the article. Cheers, Bigger digger (talk) 18:16, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

This is my position as well, and has been from my first look at this page. I said "an influential sermon about the subject" should be located. No shoot-from-the-hip essay is appropriate on WP. Onus is on the person trying to add material. Binksternet (talk) 01:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I do not suggest we make an "intellectual "leap" from crime to sin." For one, I understand the subjectivity involved. Two, I understand that this is not the "crime" article, which itself mentions (in elementary depth) sin, original sin, morality, and natural law. Three, I understand that this term is linked to a specialized nonsensical idea of inconsequentiality, and that it is this inconsequentiality, not crime nor perfection, which is the substance of this concept.

Nor am I alone in "need[ing] to provide sources that are *acceptable to wikipedia* to support your arguments." We define terms in accordance with what they mean. That is what "concept" is. Indeed, I would be happy if this simply redirected or else linked to inconsequentiality, and I could deal with it there. That which does not simply document the term's usage its usage in fictional creative expression, or else in legalistic news reports, itself appears to be only original research itself.

Again there appears to be this concept that the term somehow has no direct relevance to "crime." -Stevertigo 22:20, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

"For example" in the lede

Why is there an example placed in the second lead paragraph? No example needs to be given there. The recent jewel thief bit should be introduced in the main article text. Binksternet (talk) 21:39, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I moved that bit down to "Real life examples". Binksternet (talk) 15:39, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

A more "rigorous definition"

Binksternet wrote "A more rigorous definition among criminologists is that a perfect crime must never be discovered; if an event is identified as a crime, it can not be 'perfect'" and attributed this to a source: http://books.google.com/books?id=kg6QLlIaI04C&pg=PA157 .

Even when a medical examiner writes about subject, his view cannot be considered as a "definition" as much as it is a point* he is making about the meaning of the word "perfect" in the context of a crime. According to him, a crime is not perfect if he can at all detect it. A criminal may consider a detected but misidentified crime to be just as "perfect."

One person's point means its basically an opinion, albeit an educated one (in medicine anyway) that raises the important (medical examiner's) dimension. But note now that accepting his point as a "rigorous definition" (!?) also rules out undetected burglaries, white collar crime, cybertheft, rape, vandalism, and jaywalking - in addition to dispensing with all "unsolved" crimes.

So you are running into certain conceptual contradictions. Which is perfectly normal when dealing with vague notions like this one. We should of course indicate its atheistic roots as well, but lets deal with that later. -Stevertigo 00:19, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Aside from the over-reliance on mdashes and italics, I don't have a problem with the general thrust of your reconstruction. The "technical achievement" phrase makes me wince; the phrase imputes positive criminal intent to every perfect crime. One source I read included in the concept of perfect crime those cases which were unsolved because of investigator inadequacy, not criminal skill. Binksternet (talk) 19:08, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I reverted it back, with an explanation: I have to tweak this back, Bink. The expression "to characterize [something]..." cannot simply end without actually describing what the characterization is: ie. "..as a [thing]." We can work on what the actual implied meaning of the characterization is, I suppose, but I don't see how anyone could improve on "..a kind of technical achievement."

Bink: "The "technical achievement" phrase makes me wince; the phrase imputes positive criminal intent to every perfect crime." Does not "perfect" already assert positive connotations? I don't see how "positive criminal intent"[sic] is conveyed.

The italics are to feature distinct fundamental concepts relevant to the subject wen they are listed as a cloud. And the em-dashes are generally regarded as preferable —aesthetically speaking —to using semicolons. -Stevertigo 19:28, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

By using "an ostensibly inconsequential act" rather than my "not have any legal consequences" you ignore non-legal consequences such as personal loss or gain from the act. By re-inserting "technical achievement" you go against the possibility of a future addition to the article of a section based on Timmerman's chapter "The Perfect Crime" within his book Postmortem, the one that includes a description of systemic inadequacy on the part of examiners. A quote: "Yet the legal system does not check the claims that medical examiners fail to make. Thousands of deaths come to medical examiners' attention that are considered insufficiently suspicious to warrant an autopsy or even a case number."

• Popular Mechanics, August 1930. "Is There A 'Perfect Crime'?" A fun URL for old-timey sensibilities. Binksternet (talk) 20:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Bink wrote: "By using "an ostensibly inconsequential act" rather than my "not have any legal consequences" you ignore non-legal consequences such as personal loss or gain from the act." - Let me understand - you reject the general concept (inconsequentiality) for a rather specific concept (legal consequences) and then say that the general concept prohibits/negates certain "consequences" both good and bad (for the perpetrator). An interesting point, but it rests on a clever misuse of the word "consequences" to refer to advantages rather than disadvantages. Its true that in a general usage of the term "consequences" we can include all consequential things, but remember that consequences are different from results:

If one robs a bank, getting the money is not a "consequence" - its a result. Getting a beautiful girl out of the deal would be a consequence, of sorts, but again this is a misuse of "consequence" as we deal with the concept of "crime," which itself has *negative semantics, doesn't it? Perhaps you've exposed a certain idiomatic flaw in the English language, and that would be interesting, but in reality the issue is conceptual and semantically moralistic: when we do bad things, the term "consequences" likewise tends to mean something bad. Happily enough, doing good things appears to result in good consequences. Hm? The issue then is there is a semantic orthography built into the language that modifies the term "consequences" in accord with the ethical and moral concepts we attach to the relevant actions. An act of robbery might get one some money, but the "consequences" thereof are quite something else. The "consequences" of murder aren't "legal" - they are "mortal." Hence "legal consequences" is too inadequate.

Bink wrote: "By re-inserting "technical achievement" you go against the possibility of a future addition to the article of a section based on Timmerman's chapter "The Perfect Crime" within his book Postmortem, the one that includes a description of systemic inadequacy on the part of examiners." - Hm. You do understand that Timmerman here is employing the term in a way which contradicts even his own earlier definition, and thus we should infer that he's just using the term "perfect crime" as more of a literary device rather than a medical legal or ethical concept. Hm? -Stevertigo 10:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

To me, it appears that Timmerman talks about perfect crime because it is interesting to readers, and because the concept has affected criminology work. His appreciation of 'perfect crime' is large enough to include various viewpoints. Binksternet (talk) 20:35, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Swaim Case

The David Swaim scuba-diving case referenced at length in the Real life examples section was overturned on appeal last fall. [1] Not sure what the best way would be go go about revising the article from where it stands now. --75.162.19.10 (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I removed it as I find it irrelevant: Either he is innocent (which is what I personally believe), which means the crime isn't actually a crime at all, or he is guilty, which means he got caught, thus it isn't a perfect crime. You could argue, in that case, that since he got away with it, it qualifies as a perfect crime, although I would say spending ~2 years in prison does not qualify as "getting away with it". 213.66.58.186 (talk) 01:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Prefect Crime is No Crime

Simply, a perfect crime is no crime or a wee bit (delta) less than that, where by no laws are breached by exploiting a loop hole in the code and/or just not standing under (understanding) it.

Another attempt at a definition

My understanding has always been that a perfect crime is one where the perpetrator has managed to evade detection through a combination of intelligence (ability to anticipate the thought processes of the investigators), thoroughness (elimination of all relevant evidence) and sheer luck. Locked-room mysteries provide typical examples of particularly-hard-to-solve cases that come close to perfection, at least. "Mr. Monk and the Astronaut" may be a good example: although there is a suspect, his alibi appears bafflingly airtight. Am I mistaken? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:59, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Contradictions

The article currently seems contradictory in two (possibly related) ways:

1. The introduction says "A perfect crime should be distinguished from one that has merely not been solved yet or where everyday chance or procedural matters frustrate a conviction", but the section about the zone of death in Yellowstone National Park says it "may permit the commission of the 'perfect crime' on the technical grounds that a jury trial could not be carried out". That sounds like a "procedural matter" to me.
2. The introduction focuses to a crime being "(un)solved", but the problem with the "perfect crime" in the zone of death is that it can't be prosecuted, not that it can't be "solved" (whatever that means – presumably figuring out who committed it).

In resolving these contradictions, it should be taken into account that the original essay on the zone of death is titled The Perfect Crime and that the articles on Bullfrog County, Nevada, Zone of Death (Yellowstone) and Vicinage_Clause all use the term with reference to that phenomenon. This suggests that the definition of "perfect crime" should include that case, and if a definition that doesn't is adopted, those articles would need to be adapted.

Joriki (talk) 12:49, 5 August 2023 (UTC)