Suspect
In the parlance of criminal justice, a suspect is a known person suspected of committing a crime. Police and reporters in the United States often incorrectly use the word suspect when referring to the perpetrator of the offense (perp for short). The perpetrator is the robber, assailant, counterfeiter, etc. --the person who actually committed the crime. The distinction between suspect and perpetrator recognizes that the suspect is not known to have committed the offense, while the perpetrator—who may not yet have been suspected of the crime, and is thus not necessarily a suspect—is the one who actually did. The suspect may be a different person from the perpetrator, or there may have been no actual crime, which would mean there is no perpetrator.
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Famous quotes containing the word suspect:
“I suspect there isn’t an actor alive who was able to truthfully answer his family’s questions after his first day’s activity in his future profession.”
—Simone Signoret (1921–1985)
“When offense occurred, Slaughter took the trail, and seldom returned with a live prisoner. Usually he reported that he had chased the suspect “clean out of the county”; these suspects never reappeared in Tombstone—or anywhere else.”
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Babbitt as a book was planless; its end arrived apparently because its author had come to the end of the writing-pad, or rather, one might suspect from its length, to the end of all writing-pads then on the market.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)