When they write history books about podcasting there should be an entire chapter on Criminal. If you just discovered it today, you can't understand how it was to hear it when it first came out. I still remember where I was when listened to it. Walking to a bus stop. 2014. The landscape was different."

- Todd Wemmer, Endicott College

Criminal is a quietly riveting podcast that approaches crime not as spectacle, but as a lens on human behavior, morality, and the systems we live within. Hosted by Phoebe Judge with calm precision and narrative grace, the show resists the genre’s typical sensationalism, instead opting for thoughtful, often surprising stories that span centuries and continents. Whether profiling a 19th-century grave robber or a modern-day scam artist, Criminal treats its subjects with nuance and restraint, finding meaning in the margins. It’s a model of elegant audio journalism—less about blood and headlines, more about consequence, character, and the strange elasticity of justice.