Crime and justice — C1

At B2 you could follow a news story about a crime. At C1 you need the register of US legal journalism — the dialect of The New York Times, ProPublica, NPR’s Criminal, and the better legal podcasts (Serial, In the Dark, Strict Scrutiny). That means felony vs misdemeanor, indictment, plea bargain, parole, probation, recidivism, white-collar crime, money laundering, mistrial, qualified immunity — words that travel between the courtroom, the policy debate, and the editorial page.

US criminal procedure has its own dense vocabulary, and the terms are not interchangeable. Arrest, indictment, arraignment, trial, conviction, sentencing, appeal are sequential stages, each with specific procedural meaning. A C1 student should track the difference between charged with and convicted of, between parole and probation, between plea bargain and plea deal (mostly synonyms in casual use, but with technical distinctions in formal writing).

This lesson is also a vocabulary of contested policy. The 2010s and 2020s reshaped US discourse on crime around mass incarceration, qualified immunity, prosecutorial discretion, cash bail, and recidivism. C1-level vocabulary lets you participate in that debate, not just describe what happened.

Categories of crime — felony vs misdemeanor

The bedrock distinction in US criminal law.

• felony charge / felony conviction — the consequential category in US life
• a felon / convicted felon — someone with a felony conviction; affects voting rights, gun rights, employment
• misdemeanant — someone with a misdemeanor conviction (rare in everyday speech)
• petty theft vs grand theft / grand larceny — value thresholds (typically $1000)
• misdemeanor assault vs felony assault / aggravated assault
• simple battery vs aggravated battery
• possession vs possession with intent to distribute — the drug-felony escalation
• first-degree / second-degree / third-degree — gradations within a charge (especially murder)
• murder vs manslaughter — intent vs no intent
• voluntary manslaughter (heat of passion) vs involuntary manslaughter (negligent)
• white-collar crime — non-violent financial crime
• violent crime — homicide, assault, robbery, sexual assault
• property crime — burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson
• federal crime — violates federal law; tried in federal court
• state crime — violates state law; tried in state court

The procedural pipeline — from arrest to sentencing

US criminal procedure follows a sequence with specific vocabulary at each stage.

Pre-trial

• arrest — taking someone into custody
• probable cause — the legal standard for arrest
• Miranda rights / Miranda warning — “You have the right to remain silent…”
• Mirandize — verb (police Mirandized the suspect)
• booking — processing at the station (fingerprints, mug shot, paperwork)
• mug shot — booking photograph
• bail — money to secure release pending trial
• cash bail — bail paid in money (controversial; under reform pressure)
• bail bond / bondsman — third party posts bail for a fee
• released on own recognizance (ROR / OR) — released without bail
• remanded / held without bail — denied bail
• arraignment — formal court appearance to hear charges and enter a plea
• enter a plea — guilty / not guilty / no contest (nolo contendere)
• plead the Fifth — invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination
• discovery — pre-trial exchange of evidence
• motion — formal request to the court (motion to suppress, motion to dismiss)
• suppress evidence — exclude illegally obtained evidence
• dismiss — drop the charges
• dropped charges vs dismissed charges — slight difference (prosecutor drops; judge dismisses)
• indictment — formal charging by a grand jury
• grand jury — jury that decides whether to indict (different from the trial jury)
• the prosecution declined to press charges — prosecutor chose not to proceed
• prosecutorial discretion — the prosecutor’s power to decide whom and how to charge

Trial

• trial — court proceeding to determine guilt
• jury trial vs bench trial — by jury vs by judge alone
• voir dire — jury selection
• strike a juror — remove a potential juror
• peremptory challenge — strike without giving a reason (limited)
• for-cause challenge — strike with stated reason (unlimited)
• the defendant — person charged
• the prosecution / the state / the people — accusing side
• the defense — defending side
• prosecutor / district attorney (DA) / assistant DA (ADA) / US Attorney (federal)
• defense attorney / public defender (court-appointed)
• opening statement — initial address to the jury
• closing argument — final address
• witness / eyewitness / expert witness / character witness / hostile witness
• testimony — sworn statement
• cross-examination / cross — opposing counsel’s questioning
• direct examination / direct — your own witness’s questioning
• objection — formal complaint about a question or evidence (“Objection — hearsay!”)
• sustained vs overruled — judge accepts or rejects the objection
• hearsay — secondhand statement; generally inadmissible
• exhibit — physical evidence
• chain of custody — documented handling of evidence

Verdict and sentencing

• the verdict — guilty / not guilty
• acquittal / acquitted — found not guilty
• conviction / convicted — found guilty
• hung jury — jury cannot reach unanimous verdict
• mistrial — trial ends without verdict (hung jury, procedural error, juror misconduct)
• retrial — new trial after mistrial
• double jeopardy — bar on being tried twice for the same offense
• sentencing — separate hearing to impose punishment
• sentencing guidelines — formal sentencing ranges
• mandatory minimum — minimum required by statute
• the maximum / the max — maximum allowed sentence
• concurrent sentences vs consecutive sentences — at the same time vs one after another
• time served — credit for pretrial detention
• suspended sentence — sentence imposed but not served (yet)
• probation — supervised release in lieu of incarceration
• conditional discharge — like probation, but less restrictive

Post-conviction

• appeal — challenge the conviction to a higher court
• the appellate court / the court of appeals
• reverse / uphold / affirm a conviction
• remand — send back to lower court for further proceedings
• vacate a sentence / conviction — formally invalidate
• habeas corpus — petition for release from unlawful detention
• parole — supervised release after serving part of a sentence
• parole board — decides whether to grant parole
• parole officer / PO
• violate parole — break the conditions
• revoked parole — returned to prison
• probation officer — supervises probationers
• early release — released before full sentence served
• good behavior / good time — credit reducing sentence for compliance
• executive clemency — pardon or commutation by governor or president
• pardon — forgives the offense
• commutation — reduces the sentence
• expungement — sealing or deleting a conviction record

Plea bargaining — the engine of US criminal justice

Roughly 95% of US criminal cases end in plea bargains, not trials. The vocabulary is everywhere.

• plea bargain / plea deal — agreement to plead guilty for a reduced charge or sentence
• plea agreement — formal document
• plea hearing — court appearance to enter the plea
• plead guilty / plead not guilty / plead no contest (nolo contendere)
• nolo contendere — accept punishment without admitting guilt (often for civil-liability reasons)
• cop a plea (informal) — accept a plea deal
• cooperate / cooperator / cooperating witness — provide testimony for reduced sentence
• flip (informal) — become a cooperator
• state’s evidence — testifying against codefendants
• proffer — pre-deal statement under limited immunity
• immunity / transactional immunity / use immunity — protection from prosecution in exchange for testimony
• Queen for a Day letter — the colloquial name for a proffer letter
• sealed indictment — secret charges (used in ongoing investigations)
• sentencing letter — written argument for or against severity

Real example (NYT register): Federal prosecutors offered him a plea deal of three years on a single count of wire fraud, with the remaining 14 counts dismissed in exchange for cooperation against his former business partner. He took it the next morning — a decision that, his attorney later argued, was less a choice than a calculation of trial risk.

White-collar crime

A major category of US prosecution, with its own dense financial vocabulary.

• white-collar crime — non-violent crime for financial gain
• fraud — intentional deception for gain
• wire fraud — fraud using electronic communications (a federal charge; very broad)
• mail fraud — fraud using the postal system (also broadly applied)
• securities fraud — false statements affecting stock prices
• insider trading — trading on non-public information
• Ponzi scheme — pays earlier investors with later investors’ money (Bernie Madoff)
• pyramid scheme — recruitment-based investment scheme
• embezzlement — stealing from an employer
• misappropriation of funds — broader than embezzlement
• money laundering — disguising illegal proceeds as legitimate
• structuring — breaking cash transactions to avoid reporting (a separate crime)
• shell company — entity with no real operations, used to hide ownership
• straw man / nominee — false owner of record
• tax evasion — illegal underpayment of tax
• tax fraud — broader umbrella
• FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) — bars bribing foreign officials
• bribery — exchange of value for official action
• kickback — return of part of a payment
• extortion — obtaining by threat
• RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) — federal anti-organized-crime statute
• a RICO charge — pattern of racketeering
• conspiracy — agreement to commit a crime; itself a crime
• co-conspirator — partner in conspiracy
• the corporate veil — separation between corporation and owners
• piercing the corporate veil — holding owners personally liable

Cybercrime

A rapidly evolving vocabulary, central to 2020s and 2026 prosecutorial work.

• cybercrime — crime using or targeting computers
• hacking — unauthorized computer access
• a hack — unauthorized intrusion or its result
• phishing — fraudulent emails to steal credentials
• spear phishing — targeted phishing at specific individuals
• smishing (SMS) / vishing (voice) — variants
• ransomware — malware that encrypts data until ransom is paid
• ransomware attack / ransomware gang / ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS)
• double extortion — encrypt and threaten to leak
• DDoS (distributed denial of service)
• data breach — unauthorized disclosure of data
• identity theft — using someone else’s identity
• synthetic identity — fabricated identity for fraud
• account takeover — fraudster gains access to a legitimate account
• business email compromise (BEC) — impersonation for wire fraud
• romance scam / pig butchering — long-con relationship scams (often crypto-themed)
• crypto scam — fraud involving cryptocurrency
• rug pull — crypto founders abandon project with investors’ money
• wallet drainer — malicious tool draining a crypto wallet
• dark web — non-indexed internet; site of illegal marketplaces
• the dark web marketplace (Silk Road historically)
• cryptojacking — using someone’s computer to mine crypto
• deepfake fraud — using AI-generated audio or video for deception

Real example: The 2024 ransomware attack on Change Healthcare paralyzed claims processing across one-third of US hospitals and pharmacies for weeks. The attackers — affiliated with the BlackCat / ALPHV ransomware gang — were paid roughly $22 million, though the company later disclosed the ransom was at least partially extracted under double extortion.

Law enforcement and reform vocabulary

• law enforcement — police, broadly
• the cops / the police / PD (police department)
• patrol / patrolman / patrol officer
• detective / homicide detective
• plainclothes — non-uniformed
• undercover — operating under false identity
• sting operation — orchestrated arrest
• stakeout — surveillance
• wiretap — court-authorized phone surveillance
• search warrant / arrest warrant / bench warrant
• no-knock warrant — entry without announcement (controversial)
• probable cause vs reasonable suspicion — legal thresholds
• stop and frisk — brief detention and pat-down
• chokehold / excessive force / use of force / deadly force
• qualified immunity — limits civil liability for officers
• body cam / body-worn camera
• dash cam — vehicle-mounted camera
• internal affairs (IA) — police investigating police
• the consent decree — federal court order to reform a police department
• defund the police — slogan and policy proposal
• abolition / prison abolition — more radical reform position
• mass incarceration — the US’s unusually high incarceration rate
• recidivism / recidivism rate — rate of returning to crime after release
• the school-to-prison pipeline — pattern of school discipline funneling youth into criminal system
• carceral state — academic term for incarceration-heavy society
• restorative justice — alternative to punitive approach
• diversion programs — alternatives to prosecution

AmE-specific legal and crime vocabulary

Collocations and high-frequency phrases

• commit a crime / a felony / an offense
• charge / charged with a crime
• face charges
• press / file / bring charges
• drop / dismiss charges
• plead guilty / not guilty / no contest
• stand trial for X
• take the stand — testify
• be sworn in — take the oath
• enter into evidence
• lodge an appeal
• overturn a conviction
• serve time / a sentence
• do time (informal)
• serve out a sentence
• violate parole / probation
• out on bail / out on bond / out on parole
• post bail
• a sealed indictment
• beyond a reasonable doubt — the criminal standard of proof
• preponderance of the evidence — the civil standard
• clear and convincing evidence — the intermediate standard
• innocent until proven guilty — the presumption

Common Russian-speaker mistakes

1. Criminal for any wrongdoer. In English a criminal specifically means a convicted offender or someone engaged in serious crime. For someone charged but not convicted, say the defendant, the accused, the suspect. He’s a criminal before a verdict is improper and potentially defamatory.
2. Process for trial. False friend with процесс. In US English a trial is the courtroom proceeding. A process can mean a procedure or legal process generally (due process), but not the specific event. The trial begins Monday — not the process begins Monday.
3. Judge for the verdict. A judge is a person; a verdict is the jury’s (or judge’s) decision. Russian решение суда maps imperfectly. Say the verdict for guilty/not-guilty, the ruling for legal decisions, the sentence for the punishment imposed.
4. Punishment vs sentence. Sentence is the formal court-ordered consequence (a 10-year sentence). Punishment is the broader concept (capital punishment, harsh punishment). Russian наказание maps to both, but in legal procedure, sentence is the right word for what the judge imposes.
5. Lawyer vs attorney. Mostly interchangeable in the US, but attorney is the formal term and the one used in court contexts. Lawyer is fine in casual conversation. My lawyer and my attorney both work; attorney-client privilege is the fixed term.
6. Police singular agreement. Police is plural in English (the police are investigating, not the police is). Russian милиция/полиция is singular and the agreement carries over as an error. Always: the police are, the police were, the police have.
7. Imprisonment in casual speech. The Russian-style abstract noun is correct in formal writing but sounds stiff in news English. He was sent to prison or He was sentenced to 10 years is the everyday register; his imprisonment is for legal documents or formal writing.

Summary

• Categories: infraction, misdemeanor, felony, capital offense; jail (county) vs prison (state/federal).
• Procedural pipeline: arrest → Miranda → booking → bail / ROR → arraignment → discovery → trial → verdict → sentencing → appeal.
• Trial vocabulary: voir dire, opening / closing, cross-examination, objection (sustained / overruled), hearsay, exhibits.
• Verdict outcomes: acquittal, conviction, hung jury, mistrial, retrial, double jeopardy.
• Sentencing: concurrent vs consecutive, mandatory minimum, time served, suspended sentence.
• Post-conviction: appeal, habeas corpus, parole vs probation, expungement, pardon vs commutation.
• Plea bargaining: ~95% of cases; cooperate / flip / proffer / immunity.
• White-collar: fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, insider trading, Ponzi, embezzlement, money laundering, RICO, FCPA.
• Cybercrime: phishing, ransomware (RaaS, double extortion), data breach, deepfake fraud, pig butchering.
• Law enforcement: DA, ADA, US Attorney, public defender, FBI / DOJ, body cams, qualified immunity.
• Reform: mass incarceration, recidivism, school-to-prison pipeline, restorative justice, defund vs abolish vs reform.

Next theme: Psychology and emotions — cognition, growth vs fixed mindset, cognitive bias, imposter syndrome, attachment styles, resilience, mindfulness, and CBT / EMDR / DBT — the 2026 American therapy-literate vocabulary.