William Roughead (1870–1952) was a Scottish lawyer and amateur criminologist, as well as an editor and essayist on "matters criminous". He was an important early practitioner of the modern "true crime" literary genre.

True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines a crime and details the actions of people associated with and affected by criminal events. It is a cultural phenomenon that can refer to the promotion of sensationalized and emotionally charged content around the subject of violent crime, for the general public.