On the Lam

July 29, 2019
This engrossing, detailed account from associate professor of criminal justice Clark and journalist Palattella (Mania and Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong: Inside the Mind of a Female Serial Killer) follows the history of bail from Ancient Rome to the creation of the U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI, organizations that have hunted fugitives since the 1930s. Despite the American public’s admiration for some outlaws—from Jesse James to Bonnie and Clyde and Robert Burns, who actually wrote I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang! while being a fugitive—people have been helpful in the capture of many of those on the lam, the authors note. Law enforcement agencies, which began crowdsourcing in the 1930s with the publication and posting of the FBI’s Most Wanted list, have used TV to appeal for information about fugitives (the show America’s Most Wanted, which ran from 1988 to 2012, resulted in the capture of 1,149 fugitives), and today, it’s the internet where the wanted are commonly hunted. Indeed, “head for the border” no longer guarantees freedom, as Eduardo Rodriguez learned when the LAPD used Facebook posts to track him down and capture him in Mexico. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of criminal justice.