"Much of the output that falls within that category is true-fact-checked, verified-but what Lennon suggests in his book, The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us, is that a deeper look into the lives of true crime's villains can reveal a much more ambiguous picture than the genre's good-versus-evil formula tends to permit. Many people who commit heinous crimes have a history of criminal victimization themselves."
"The Tragedy of True Crime is devoted to challenging the simplistic narratives advanced by the true-crime genre, largely by establishing that there is more to the prototypical antagonist than his crimes. In this way, Lennon seems to be making an implicit argument that murderers' identities should not forever be defined by their worst act. For Lennon, the book itself is an assertion of his identity beyond that of a killer:"
John J. Lennon murdered a former friend in 2001, disposed of the body in a laundry bag with a cinder block, and is serving a long sentence at Sing Sing while writing about criminal justice. Demand for true-crime content is high across streaming services and podcasts, and much of that output is fact-checked. A deeper examination of offenders' lives can reveal ambiguity beyond a simple villain narrative, since many who commit heinous crimes have histories of criminal victimization. This reframing spreads culpability outward through social contexts and argues against defining individuals solely by their worst acts.
Read at The Atlantic
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