Potential Titles: Law: Crime and Violence [category]

Most financial crimes that have too few fragments for their own post can be found here: Potential Titles: Money - Dubiously Legal [category]. That's mostly because I created that category first. I'm not going to try to duplicate them because I'll loose track of what's where and probably only update one category the next time I have a snippet. Once those words have their own posts, I'll put them in both places.

Crimes of deceit may also be found here: Potential Titles: Deceit and Trickery [category].

Many acts and tools of violence can be found in the posts about war/combat and weapons: Potential Titles: War/Combat/Military - Activities [category], Potential Titles: War/Combat/Military Adjacent [category], and Potential Titles: Weapons, Armor, and Adjacent [category].

Religious crimes and punishments are mostly going to be found here: Potential Titles: Supernatural/Religious [category] and Potential Titles: Rank/Titles - Religious [category].

People committing and/or punishing crime will sometimes be here: Potential Titles: Ranks/Titles - People and Groups in Communities/Relationships [category] (Another category I established before I did this one).

Not all of these are always crimes or always violent. Some things listed (such as Blasphemy, Obscenity, and Vagrancy) are things that I personally don't consider crimes but that are often legally banned. Some things are technically legal or hard to define well enough to legislate but violent/cruel or things I consider dubious behaviors/actions. Some things, such as Rebellion or Protest, are crimes from certain points of view but may be viewed as justified and righteous by participants.

Additionally, some of the acts of violence listed have been used as judicial punishments, and some words listed in the Law: Repercussions post are (or ought to be) crimes or, at least, are extremely controversial as legally imposed punishments..


Abduct:
Wanted to abduct nothing more valuable than our dreams - Duane Ackerson "Porch Lights"

Maple leaves abducted by the wind - Stanley Moss "Winter Flowers"

Abet:
Still the glorious sham abetting - Roger Casement "The Peak of the Cameroons"

Abscond:
Bliss is a body absconding - Airea D. Matthews "Altitude"

Abuse:
The recent abuses of math - Jim Daniels "Treaty"

Accomplice:
Accomplices that come befriending languid hours - Lascelles Abercrombie "Ryton Firs: The Voices in the Dream"

Accomplice of a million crimes - Emily Lawless "From the Burren VII: A Reproach"

Be your bright accomplices - Mary Szybist "In the Beginning God Said Light"

Divine accomplice of those perilous-sweet - Edith Wharton "La Folle du Logis"

Accuse.

Addict/Addiction.

Affront:
A charnel that affronts the sky - Arthur Davison Ficke "A Watteau Melody"

My breathing is an affront - Kamilah Aisha Moon "Fannie Lou Hamer"

So dares affront the great god Pan - Robert Nichols "A Faun's Holiday"

Alias:
To watch this alias of a race - Jay Deshpande "Wanting a Child"

Alibi.

Annihilate.

Arson.

Assassin/Assassination.

Assault.

Bandit.

Beg.

Behead.

Black Market:
Black market gun-runners of militias and drug dealers - Gary Copeland Lilley "War"

Blackguard:
Cursed whatever brute and blackguard made the world - A.E. Housman "Last Poems IX"

Blasphemy.

Bootleg:
Bootlegged in the marketplace - William Archila "Saturn's Country"

Brigands and bootleggers and burglars - Lisa M. Bradley "Una Cancion de Keys"

The bully of the bootleg town - Joseph Seamon Cotter Sr. "The Tragedy of Pete"

Bribe.

Brigand:
Brigands and bootleggers and burglars - Lisa M. Bradley "Una Cancion de Keys"

Offer a share of your brigand-sun - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Retort Discourteous"

Buccaneer:
Playing buccaneer among the minnows - Edmund Blunden "Perch-Fishing"

Cannibal:
In some cannibalistic parent and child reunion - Duane Ackerson "Bird Seed"

Algorithms cannibalize our art with parasite teeth - Wren Douglas "Fursonas Are Not Enough, I Need to Be a Moss-Coated Mech"

Distinguish capitalism from cannibalism - Jessica Kim "Montage"

Carnage:
Sprawl in the carnage and count the spoils - Dana Gioia "Psalm and Lament for Los Angeles"

No trade but battle and carnage - Li Po "Fighting" transl. by Arthur Waley

Through the red sea of the carnage - "New-England's Advance" [The Continental Monthly v.1 no.6, June 1862]

Chicanery:
Chicanery's brought to succor darkest crime - J. Fairfax McLaughlin writing as Pasquino "The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons"

Contraband:
One endless night, stolen contraband - Mike Allen "How I Will Outwit the Time Thieves"

Counterfeit.

Crime.

Crook/Crooked.

Culprit:
To look with grief on the culprit's way - Mary Gardiner "The Sacrifice" [The Knickerbocker Feb. 1844]

And justice dooms you to a culprit's fate - James Parkerson "The Convict's Farewell: with Advice to Criminals, before and after Trial"

Cut-Throat:
A cave of cut-throat thoughts and villainous dreams - William Ernest Henley "London Voluntaries"

Here's damnation to the cut-throats! - Oliver Wendell Holmes "Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle, as She Saw it from the Belfry"

Debauch:
In a Hell's debauch of dyes - Vachel Lindsay "A Doll's 'Arabian Nights'"

Desecrate:
Must desecrate this silent time - Paul Bewsher "The Night Raid"

Desecration in your eyes - Nikita Gill "Persephone to Theseus and Pirithous"

To meet at last the desecrated dawn - Mary Cornelia Hartshorne "Three Poems of Christmas Eve: Tonight"

Desperado:
For desperados and bleached bones - Blaize Kelly Strothers "The West Is Dead"

Dimebag:
Pockets pregnant with moondust in dimebags - Mike Allen "Freebasing the Moon"

Disgrace:
Disgrace and reproaches here - Arthur Rimbaud "Hellish Night" transl. by Bertrand Mathieu

When in disgrace with fortune - William Shakespeare "Sonnet XXIX"

And cures not the disgrace - William Shakespeare "Sonnet XXXIV"

Merits not the blame of that disgrace - Gregory Thornton "Sonnets of Shakespeare's Ghost: IV"

Dismember:
A diagonal dismemberment of silk - Michael Leong "from Transmitting the Vertical Immensity of Coniferous Light"

Needed no dismembered star to guide you - Ann K. Schwader "Spiral Scream"

Drug Market:
Black market gun-runners of militias and drug dealers - Gary Copeland Lilley "War"

Drunk.

Duress:
Some landscapes under duress - Aditi Machada "Rhapsody"

As sluggish waters in duress - Lola Ridge "Still Water (To D.L.)"

That evades the duress of our current reality - Prageeta Sharma "I Am Learning to Find the Horizons of Peace"

Embezzle:
A temporal embezzlement siphoning away my time - Mike Allen "How I Will Outwit the Time Thieves"

Evil.

Eviscerate:
the evisceration of slang on altars made unkind - upfromsumdirt (Ron Davis) "To Stand Down (And To Stand By)"

Fiasco:
A member of the fiasco survivor's club - Mary Jo Bang "A Sonata for Four Hands, II"

Filch:
Filch'd her fortune and her fame - Jesse Hammond "Confidence and Credit" [Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction v.10 no.267, Aug. 4, 1827]

Secrets filched and heralded abroad - Sylvester "The Dream" [Southern Literary Messenger v.II no.1 Dec. 1835-6]

Flay:
Flay the very heavens with its raging - Giosue Carducci "Old Figurines" transl. by Frank Sewall

magpies that flay blackbirds - Tanque R. Jones "Hany"

Forsworn:
Our earth bent dustward forsworn to decay - Stephen Oliver "Zionism"

Foul:
In narrow streets, or alleys foul with sin - Charles H. Barstow "Spring's Advent" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 5th series, no.116-v.III, 20 March 1886]

Huddle together in the foul eclipse - William Ernest Henley "London Voluntaries"

Go for the foul with thirty seconds left - Jake Skeets "Drunktown"

Fault too foul to find excuse - Gregory Thornton "Sonnets of Shakespeare's Ghost: X"

Fratricide:
And children born for fratricidal war - Giosue Carducci "Dante [Strong forms were those of the New Life]" transl. by Frank Sewall

Fugitive.

Guilt.

Gun-Running:
Black market gun-runners of militias and drug dealers - Gary Copeland Lilley "War"

Harass:
That harassed and oppressed the day - Archibald Lampman "With the Night"

Swarms of Officers to harass our people - Tracy K. Smith "Declaration"

As the crows harass an owl - Alison Swan "The Old Days"

Harlot:
Silken harlots, velvet wine - Harold Acton "The Prodigal Son"

Havoc.

Henchman:
Henchmen busy with locks & chains - Yusef Komunyakaa "The Day I Saw Barack Obama Reading Derek Walcott's Collected Poems"

Highwayman:
To ride with the Bandit King and his highwaymen - Kelly Stewart "The Bandit King"

Hijack:
Hijack the next spaceship and travel to Mars - Julie Babcock "Dick and Jane Burn Down the House"

Hijacked the Doppler radar screen - D.A. Powell "Useless Landscape"

Undertake the hijacking of language - Prageeta Sharma "Poetry Anonymous"

Homocide:
Homocide begins with the heartbeat - Caroline Harper New "Interview with a Cervidologist"

Hoodwink:
Harm those they hoodwink - Tommaso Campanella "XXVII. The Bad Prince" transl. by John Addington Symonds

Hooligan:
Shredding the sky in their hooligan gangs - Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris "swifts"

Hostage.

Identity Theft:
Identity theft has knocked off a few years - Karen A. Romanko "The Invisible Woman Runs for President"

Illicit.

Impale:
Impaled on the pinnacles of a brassy skyscape - Bruce Boston "The Lesions of Genetic Sin"

Sweet beats of jazz impaled - Bob Kaufman "Walking Parker Home"

Impaled on slivers of wind - Bob Kaufman "Walking Parker Home"

Impale the sky on silver spears - William Watson "A Child's Hair"

Iniquity:
Who take the legacy and iniquity - Giorgiomaria Cornelio "La specia storta (The Bent Species)" transl. by Moira Egan

Refrained from clutching at iniquity - C.H.B. Kitchin "Ruler of infinite austerity"

A steady diet of iniquities - Thomas Lynch "Argyle in Agony"

Who the paths of iniquity trod - Old Humphrey "The Sabbath Breaker Reclaimed; or, a pleasing history of Thomas Brown"

Inviolate/Violate.

Jeopardy:
Shield them from that jeopardy - Elinor Jenkins "Dreams Trespassing"

To jeopardize my own supremacy - "John Bull to Jonathan" [The Continental Monthly v.2 no.3, Sept. 1862]

Agencies that jeopardize the birdsong - June Jordan "6.3.96-6.4.96"

Larceny:
With petty larcenies and pokers - Henry S. Leigh "Cupid's Mamma"

Lechery:
To license lust with all a lecher's rage - J. Fairfax McLaughlin writing as Pasquino "The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons"

Loot:
Solved all danger of the looting - Thomas O'Hagan "Trouble in the Louvre"

Lynch:
Also where lynched men die - Frank Barbour Coffin "The Negro's 'America'"

Maim:
Left the gladioli & zinnias maimed - Yusef Komunyakaa "The Whistle"

Malcontent:
Rough-hewn hours of practice and malcontent - Anthony Butts "Song of Earth and Sky"

Malcontents and mutineers - Charles Cotton "Contentation"

The alphabet for interrupters, malcontents - Carolina Ebeid "Wearing a Mask, Speaking into the Camera"

Massacre:
Lend their limbs to massacre - Rasha Abdulhadi "Safe Harbor in Enemy Homes"

Never gave consent to those red days of massacre - Stephen Vincent Benet "The Last Banquet"

I was a massacre for the dark - Maggie Damken "Before I Opened My Eyes"

Mayhem:
Can't make this mayhem a miracle - brian g. gilmore "denny mcclain, in garden city, michigan (for scott & dan)"

A mayhem that torments a city - Mark McMorris "Dear Michael (2)"

Minion.

Misdemeanor:
Withholding judgment on our misdemeanors - Boris Dralyuk "The Passing of the Bungalows"

The misdemeanors of uncounted time - Charlotte Perkins Gilman "How Would You?"

Molest:
Where Reynard's paw could not molest - Palmer Cox "The Brownies' Kites"

Murder.

Mutilate:
Among these discreet mutilations - Xan Phillips "I Never Felt Comfortable in My Own Skin so I Made a New One"

Neglect/Negligence.

Obscene:
In the middle of the troupe obscene - Charles Baudelaire "La Beatrice" transl. not credited

Mumbling out dull obscenity - Stephen Vincent Benet "Young Blood"

Obscene because it was built to endure time - Yusef Komunyakaa "Cape Coast Castle"

Such obscenity of trespass - D.H. Lawrence "The Mosquito"

Offend/Offense.

Perjure:
Perjury and threats drove them on - "By Memory Inspired" [A Book of Irish Verse ed. by W.B. Yeats]

Swell with haste the perjured sails - T.S. Eliot "Sweeney Erect"

The only truth in all our perjured composition - Edwin Arlington Robinson "The False Gods"

You dare to say with perjured lips - Henry van Dyke "Mare Liberum"

Pilfer.

Piracy/Pirate.

Plunder.

Protest.

Pyromania:
My nostalgia is a pyromaniac - Jamaal May "The Tendencies of Walls"

Rampage:
All the bizarre debris of your exotic rampage - Bruce Boston & Marge Simon "Ajax Redux"

Your exotic rampage through the annals of myth - Bruce Boston & Marge Simon "Ajax Redux"

Rebel/Rebellion/Rebellious.

Revolt/Revolution.

Revolutionary.

Riot.

Rob.

Rogue.

Sin.

Slander.

Slaughter.

Smother.

Stab.

Steal/Stole.

Stolen.

Strangle

Tamper:
Without fear of our tampering - J. Estanislao Lopez "The Systemic"

Theft.

Thief.

Torment.

Torture.

Transgress:
In the wake of transgression - Carl Phillips "Radiance versus Ordinary Light"

Under my transgression bow - William Shakespeare "Sonnet CXX"

One in transgression and one in remorse - William Watson "England to Ireland"

Treason.

Trespass.

Vagabond.

Vagrant.

Vice.

Vicious.

Victim.

Vile.

Villain.

Violate.

Violence/Violent.

Waylay:
Waylaid by a merry ghost at every lamp - William Ernest Henley "London Voluntaries"

In some vile alley of the night waylaid - William Ernest Henley "Rhymes and Rhythms"

Wicked.


Navigation Links:
Go to author indices.
Go to word indices.
Go to category indices.

Potential Titles: Law: Official Orders and Restrictions [category]

Authority/Authorize.

Ban.

Blacklist:
Progress is a blacklist - Remica Bingham-Risher "The Lose Your Mother Suite VI. 'across the surface of my studied speech'"

Censor:
Stands to the censor's scythe - Mina Loy "Apology of Genius"

Censored truth as pale as fear - Lola Ridge "The Tidings (Easter 1916)"

Censored lies that mimic truth - Lola Ridge "The Tidings (Easter 1916)"

Contract.

Decree.

Doctrine.

Dystopia:
My strong strategy for the future dystopia - Jameka Williams "Self-Care is a Psy-Op"

Edict:
Our knife clicked like an edict - Raymond McDaniel "Assault to Abjury"

The edict that traps my hunger in cages - Mark McMorris "Prayer to Shadows on My Wall"

Buried you in cold edicts - Pablo Neruda "The Judges" transl. by Jack Schmitt

Shut my eyes to the edicts - Isaac Rosenberg "Moses"

Fiat:
The fiat summoning day - Edward Dowden "Musicians"

Whose fiat lulls the storm - Felicia Hemans "England and Spain; or, Valour and Patriotism"

The fiat of that midnight hour - Felicia Hemans "The Sceptic"

Govern.

Injunction:
An injunction from a distant government - Emily Berry "Unexhausted Time"

Inquisition:
Sweet inquisition of light - Lola Ridge "Frank Little at Calvary"

Chosen by an inquisitor of structures - Wallace Stevens "To an Old Philosopher in Rome"

Interrogate:
Interrogated by the darkness - Nikita Gill "A Conversation with My Mental Illness"

Flesh interrogating a stone - Yusef Komunyakaa "Autobiography of My Alter Ego"

Interrogated by floods - Bojan Louis "Ghazal IV"

Judge/Judgment.

Justice.

Law.

Legal/Illegal.

License:
Who accords to his language the license to outrage - Bulwer Lytton publishing as Owen Meredith "Lucile: Part I Canto II"

Get one license to unloose my soul and shout - Wallace Irwin "The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor"

To license lust with all a lecher's rage - J. Fairfax McLaughlin writing as Pasquino "The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons"

Beneath the rain's unlicensed joys - Helen Hay Whitney "As a Pale Child"

Mandate.

Permit.

Precedent: See Precede.

Restrict.

Statute:
Under the masonry of state and statute - Seamus Heaney "The Unacknowledged Legislator's Dream"

The statute of the wind - Pablo Neruda "Wandering Albatross" transl. by Jack Schmitt

Taboo:
I have decreed them all taboo - Thomas M. Disch "Ballade of the New God"

Sweet taboo silhouetted against red temptation - Terese Mason Pierre "'Streets,' by Persephone"

Waiver:
Sign a waiver for the possibility of death - Anne Carly Abad "Exchange"


Navigation Links:
Go to author indices.
Go to word indices.
Go to category indices.

Potential Titles: Law: Repercussions [category]

Some of the words below reference things that can also be crimes or that are, IMO, unethical and immoral as punishments. Some things that have been used as punishments (such as Torture) aren't listed here, instead see: Potential Titles: Law: Crime and Violence [category].

Admonish:
Trying to squeeze beauty into admonishment - Ana Bozicevic "Intervals of Please"

The admonition of a silver bell - Ernest Dowson "Benedictio Domini"

Admonitions to the winds and seas - John Keats "Hyperion"

Amend.

Annul:
The annulling light of any pitiless dawn - Lionel Johnson "In Falmouth Harbour"

Legally annulled from his life - Steven David Justin Sills "Post Annulment 2"

Whose slow, annuling tide creeps nearer - George Sterling "The Wiser Prophet"

Annul the blinding gesture of the sword - Humbert Wolfe "Apples"

Appease/Unappeased

Arrest.

Atone.

Bail:
Letting midnight out on bail - Langston Hughes "Jam Session"

Banish.

Behead.

Brand.

Cancel.

Censure:
Censured by our eyes - Christopher Marlowe "Hero and Leander"

To censure all with scornful eyes - Adelaide Anne Proctor "Lavater's Warning" [Household Words ed. by Charles Dickens]

And blot their censure with self-blaming - Gregory Thornton "Sonnets of Shakespeare's Ghost: II"

Charge.

Clemency:
In the clemency of an autumn - Lucie Brock-Broido "Soul Keeping Company"

From Heaven distilled a clemency - Thomas Hardy "And There Was a Great Calm"

Condemn.

Confine.

Confiscate:
I come to confiscate your love - Katy Lederer "Love"

Constrain.

Conviction.

Demotion:
The universe demotes me, yet again - Josh Bell "The War Against Birthdays"

The demotion of Pluto - Mary Soon Lee "I, Universe"

Discipline.

Exclude/Exclusion.

Execute.

Exile.

Expel/Expulsion.

Expiation:
The plan of expiation is unchanged - S.J. Bates "The Sacrifice" [The Continental Monthly v.6 no.3, Sept. 1864]

And furnish expiation for the sin - S.J. Bates "The Sacrifice" [The Continental Monthly v.6 no.3, Sept. 1864]

The expiation journey toward peace - Muriel Rukeyser "Elegy in Joy [excerpt]"

Gallows.

Guillotine:
Whose breath whets the edge of the guillotine - Dana Levin "According to the Gospel of Yes"

With your round guillotine of a mouth - Dana Levin "The Point of the Needle"

Dangling his guillotine of dread - Safiya Sinclair "Planet Dread"

Handcuff:
The handcuff of obligation - Ada Limon "The Lost Glove"

Hang/Hung.

Impale:
Impaled on the pinnacles of a brassy skyscape - Bruce Boston "The Lesions of Genetic Sin"

Sweet beats of jazz impaled - Bob Kaufman "Walking Parker Home"

Impaled on slivers of wind - Bob Kaufman "Walking Parker Home"

Impale the sky on silver spears - William Watson "A Child's Hair"

Imprison.

Incarceration:
For a solar system beyond sable incarceration - William Archila "Saturn's Country"

Interdict:
Interdict all vague emotion - Arthur Hugh Clough "Dipsychus"

Where no tyrant's interdict can ban - George Martin "Montreal Carnival Sports"

Jail.

Leniency:
The leniency of consideration - Dara Barrois/Dixon "The Pressure of the Moment"

Noose:
That sly angel whose halo is a noose in disguise - Maggie Damken "Before I Opened My Eyes"

In a Noose of Light - Omar Khayyam "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" transl. by Edward Fitzgerald (First Edition)

Narrows its halo into a noose - Rusty Morrison "Measurement Fable"

Like a noose of golden shadow - James Oppenheim "We Dead"

Outlaw.

Pardon.

Penalty:
No penalty the change attends - Catherine Grant Furley "Quits!" [Chambers' Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, 5th series, no.20-v.I, 17 May 1884]

No matter what the penalty - Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall "Finis"

Penance.

Penitent.

Persecution:
Will not persecute you more - Arthur Hugh Clough "Dipsychus"

In the night of persecution - Glasynys "Blodeuwedd and Hywel" transl. by Edmund O. Jones

Lucid persecution of delight - David Gray "The Moon I"

Pillory:
Pilloried to their thrones of shame - Victor Hugo "Feuilles d'Automne" transl. by Roger Casement

Prison.

Punish.

Rebuke.

Reconcile.

Redeem/Redemption.

Reparation:
All my reparations made in darkness - Kyce Bello "Far Country"

Two thousand years of daily reparation - Richard Chenevix Trench "Lines: Written at the Village of Passignano, on the Lake of Thrasymene"

Repent.

Reprieve.

Reproach.

Restitution:
If the anvil seeks restitution - Amaud Jamaul Johnson "Fred Williamson Stars as 'The Hammer'"

Retaliation:
Before I teach myself retaliation - June Jordan "I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies"

Retribution:
Scribbled with retribution - Marilyn Hacker "Headaches"

Retribution frowning on his spear - Felicia Hemans "England and Spain; or, Valour and Patriotism"

Retribution neither diminishes nor goes away - Stephen Oliver "Zionism"

Sanction:
Crows & apples sanction their appeal - Brenda Hillman "Poem for a National Seashore"

Freedom in a sanctioned outing - Joseph Rios "For Henry's Bar"

The potent sanction of her hand - Edmund Clarence Stedman "The Blameless Prince"

When ill shall sanction ill - Richard Chenevix Trench "Poland, 1831"

Scaffold.

Sentence.

Shun.

Subdue.

Trial.

Verdict.

Vindicate.

Whip.


Navigation Links:
Go to author indices.
Go to word indices.
Go to category indices.