My London constituency in Hackney has one of the highest levels of gun crime in the country. But the problem is no longer confined to inner city areas. Gun crime has spread to communities all over Britain.
The first time I read a crime novel - I think it may have been an Elmore Leonard book - it took some time for me to realise how the genre worked. There were about 20 characters on the first page, and I wasn't used to this. I started to enjoy it when I saw that was how crime books worked.
Serious crime is very, very rare, and I think all of us are interested because they are rare and unusual. If they were banal and everyday, we wouldn't be interested in them at all.
Every villain in the DC Universe wants something different, and not all of them want to rule the world. Or at least, not all of them want to rule the world in the way the Crime Syndicate do.
A conventional crime story is simple - it's just a corpse in the river or something, and a detective with an alcohol problem.
Prison is a recruitment center for the army of crime. That is what it achieves.
Poverty is the mother of crime.
Discrimination due to age is one of the great tragedies of modern life. The desire to work and be useful is what makes life worth living, and to be told your efforts are not needed because you are the wrong age is a crime.
He told us he was going to take crime out of the streets. He did. He took it into the damn White House.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?
The negro has suffered far more from the commission of this crime against the women of his race by white men than the white race has ever suffered through his crimes.
There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.
Armed and law-abiding citizens are a greater deterrent to violent crime than 1,000 laws passed by Congress.
Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
Once I've done a crime, I just forget it. I go from crime to crime.
My brother and I moved out to Hollywood initially to be a band, and where we lived, there was crime all over with my brother and I being the victims sometimes.
We all have a fundamental right to live free from fear, free from crime, and free from disorder - but while we share that right, we also share the duty to secure it.
I rely on my iPad for on-the-go entertainment. I stock it with TV shows, like 'Parks and Recreation' and the British version of 'The Office.' I'm reading a Charles Manson biography on it too, since I'm weirdly into true crime.
The vast majority of the online crime cases, we don't even know which continent the attacks are coming from. And even if we are able to find online criminals, quite often there is no outcome. The local police don't act, or if they do, there's not enough evidence, or for some reason we can't take them down.
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
Having worked as both comedian and crime writer, the one thing I know is that both involve the delivery of a performance.
Gun owners and non-gun owners alike agree on expanding background checks, making gun trafficking a serious crime with stiff penalties, making it illegal for all stalkers and all domestic abusers to buy guns, and expanding mental health resources so the mentally ill find it easier to receive treatment than to buy firearms.
It should never be a crime to be gay.
The Home Office culture was one of being just above the problem, of hovering just out of reach of knowing what was going on on the ground, whether it was crime or immigration.
Most crime fiction plots are not ambitious enough for me. I want something really labyrinthine with clues and puzzles that will reward careful attention.
In terms of addressing crime issues in the black community, the dominant political class has historically refused to endorse the full slate of reforms along lines of education, economic security, housing, etc, necessary to address the root causes.
Crime fiction is the fiction of social history. Societies get the crimes they deserve.
One of the dominant styles of the decade following the Second World War was that of Dan Barry. He flourished in the years during which comic books were expanding into new categories - realistic adventure, true crime, romance, Western, sophisticated fantasy.
It's actually a smarter crime because imagine if you rob a bank, or you're dealing drugs. If you get caught you're going to spend a lot of time in custody. But with hacking, it's much easier to commit the crime and the risk of punishment is slim to none.
I don't read a lot of magazines, but when I'm traveling, I'll pick up a copy of 'Vanity Fair' to read on the plane - it's like a full meal! The articles are so good, especially the crime stories. Browsing the Web is more like snacking - but I live on snacks.
The tragedy is that the police and inner city communities should be allies. Who suffers most from violent crime in America? Inner city communities. Who has a personal and professional interest in lowering that violence? Cops.
In terms of going back and forth between fiction and nonfiction - in which I'll include memoir, biography, and true crime - is that one relieves the other.
The Holocaust of Nazi Germany is certainly no less of a historic crime than the Holocaust that went on for centuries against African-Americans. That process of reparations, and a truth and reconciliation discussion, was extremely helpful in the country of Germany, and we need to have that here.
The U.K. has some of the toughest legislation on hate crime in the world, and it is there to keep us all safe.
I have no favourite genre or style but treat each novel with the same care, imagination and craftsmanship. It's as difficult to write a crime or a children's novel with a touch of style and grace as it is a literary novel.
If you think someone committed a crime, you should turn them in to whomever you perceive authority to be.
