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Like the weather, crime and punishment is ever present and a topic of universal interest. Everyone is intrigued by crimes that make the news, and still more by those artful renditions of crime and its consequences that supply the publishing and entertainment industries with many of their best products. No one is immune to the fascination produced by serious departures from the straight and narrow, while truly bizarre excursions are likely to cast a magic spell. There are, as well, crimes of ingenuity and daring to seduce an envious audience that secretly longs for release from the safe and tedious life of good people who abide by the law.
When crimes are no more than recreational material, paying attention to the rights and wrongs that lie beneath the surface would spoil the fun. The imagination has been let off the leash, and a tiresome and tendentious lesson in morality is the last thing it wants. But when real crimes are still fresh, something more than passive interest is in evidence. Bringing whoever did it to justice is part of the story, but so is the audience's insistence that this must be done. Getting hold of whoever is guilty is the first order of business, and punishing him for what he has done must follow. The fun and the fascination have not entirely disappeared, but a darker mood creeps in, putting a more serious and more urgent complexion on what has happened and what must now be done.
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