Value of true crime books

[Janet]

Okay so I read true cime books- they're a guilty pleasure but does
anybody think that you can learn a lot about crime by reading them? I
just read this one book called Lowlife: Life in British Prison with
Drug Dealers, Gun Runners and Murderers by Simon Eddisbury and it
really does educate you on how and why people do various different
types of crimes.

Here's the blurb on amazon

http://www.amazon.com/LowLife-British-Dealers-Runners-Murderers/dp/1844549607/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1284935220&sr=8-1

It's pretty fascinating a prison inmate has gone round all of the
other prisoners asking them to tell him their lives from start to
finish and charting their progression from petty crimes like car
theft, etc. to things like tying people up and torturing them for
their money and doing armed robberies. It's at times very grim but I'd
definitely recommend it to get an insight into why these people do
what they do.