Five years after the Madoff debacle, most of the individual investors who lost their life savings do not want to talk about it. However, a few people were willing to share their experiences. Joyce Greenberg is a retired stockbroker in Houston. Michael De Vita, an independently employed statistician, and his mother, Emma De Vita, live in Bucks County, Penn. Read the full story here. #Crime #Religion

In three-card monte, con artists use swift hand moves and constant patter to convince a sucker there's a way to win. A magician, a theater professor, and a real-life grifter each describe how the monte isn’t just a crime; it’s street theater designed to keep its losers entertained. Read the full story here. #Magic #Crime #Science

Immorality, criminality, that is the stuff of the outside world. Well, that's what some people thought, like the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, back in the 1820's. So they opened up the Eastern State Penitentiary, an experiment in correcting criminal behavior through solitary confinement. Advocates for the system believed that if left alone for long enough, away from the dirty outside world, a criminal's innate morality would prevail and,