Purpose
Crime history routinely mixes court records, police reporting, participant interviews, documentaries, memoirs, music, films, and neighborhood lore. The Crime Encyclopedia should preserve those different kinds of evidence without presenting them as equally reliable.
Evidence Levels
- Level A — Primary / Official Record
- Court opinions, indictments, plea agreements, sentencing records, official agency reports, government releases, and authenticated public records.
- Level B — Contemporary Reporting
- Professional journalism published at or near the time of the event, especially when it identifies named investigators, court filings, or direct witnesses.
- Level C — Participant or Investigator Account
- Later interviews, memoirs, documentaries, podcasts, or oral histories from offenders, victims, relatives, investigators, attorneys, or witnesses. These are valuable but should be explicitly attributed.
- Level D — Secondary Synthesis
- Later journalism, biographies, historical essays, and research that reconstruct events from earlier sources.
- Level E — Popular Culture / Street Lore
- Films, songs, unsourced internet retellings, neighborhood lore, and claims that circulate without traceable documentation. These may be documented as cultural history but should not independently establish factual claims.
Claim Language
- Convicted / pleaded guilty: use when supported by the controlling court record.
- Charged / alleged: preserve the procedural posture and do not convert allegations into findings.
- According to [person]: use for participant or investigator recollections.
- Later accounts state: use when several secondary sources repeat a claim but primary documentation has not yet been located.
- Street lore / popular retellings: reserve for cultural-history sections, not the factual backbone of an entry.
Relationship Types
Network pages should label every connection: supplier, customer, partner, subordinate, enforcer, relative, rival, victim, investigator, prosecutor, witness, informant, cooperator, or cultural association. Avoid an unlabeled line between two people, because mere contemporaneity does not establish partnership.