SVT journalist and gang war expert Diamant Salihu is the most borrowed author at both Kumla and Hall prisons. His second book, "When No One Listens", about the criminal Foxtrot network, tops the lending statistics from the prison libraries so far this year, writes Dagens Juridik.
But that's where the similarities end. At Hall, it's exclusively documentary titles about crime that are the most popular: after Salihu's book come Torbjörn Granström's "The War for Södertälje" and Johanna Bäckström Lerneby's "The Gaming King". Clark Olofsson's memoirs "Screw You! – A Robber's Story" are also popular.
At Kumla, the prisoners instead choose Gregory David Roberts' "Shantaram", a novel about a heroin-addicted bank robber in Australia who escapes from prison and makes his way to India. The third most popular book in Kumla's prison library is Machiavelli's "The Prince", which, among other things, deals with what makes people submit to power. Next comes Robert Greene's "The 48 Laws of Power", also a book about power that is frequently borrowed even in American prison libraries.
The fifth most popular book is Neil Strauss' book with various pickup tips – "The Game".
