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Jack Olsen (June 7, 1925 – July 16, 2002) was an American journalist and author known for his thorough, scholarly approach to crime reporting. He was Midwest bureau chief for Time magazine and a senior editor for Sports Illustrated. He was also a regular contributor to other publications, including Fortune and Vanity Fair.

Books written by Olsen sold thirty-three million copies. Several of his books examined the intersection of law and politics during the late 1960s-early 1970s. These include Last Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt, (Pratt, a leader of the Black Panther Party, was declared innocent and released from prison after serving 25 years on the perjured testimony of a paid FBI informant), and The Bridge at Chappaquiddick, (examining the 1969 car crash and death that damaged Sen. Edward Kennedy's political career). As Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward write in their book All The President's Men, the book was one of several checked out of the White House library by E. Howard Hunt in the course of gathering information about Kennedy to potentially be used against him in the 1972 presidential campaign.

Many of Olsen's most popular works investigated the life histories of violent career criminals. These include studies of serial rapists such as Arthur Shawcross (The Misbegotten Son) and George Russell, (Charmer), as well as serial killers (Hastened to the Grave: The Gypsy Murder Investigation). Discussing his life-long interest in crime journalism, Olsen described a field trip that his college criminology class took to a prison:

Olsen's journalism was recognized with the National Headliner Award, the Chicago Newspaper Guild's Page One Award, the Washington State Governor's Award, and the Scripps-Howard Award. He was described as "the dean of true crime authors" by The Washington Post. His crime studies remain on required reading lists in university criminology courses. In his obituary, The New York Times described his work as "a genuine contribution to criminology and journalism alike."

Olsen lived on Bainbridge Island, Washington, and died on July 16, 2002.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jack Olsen", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0