The true crime doc series with the working title Addicted to the Life is the first project to come out of Story House Canada, for Discovery ID and OWN Canada.

The newly-launched Toronto office of Story House Media Group is also at work on a documentary special with the working title The Gay Revolution: From Pride to Power, to air on the CBC next year.

Former truTV executive Robyn Hutt and ex-Red Apple president Rachel Low, the principals behind Story House Canada, will produce 12 30-minute episodes of Addicted to the Life, to air in 2013.

The factual series will reveal the human drama behind criminals who can’t break the habit.

Addicted to the Life will use a blend of interviews, real-life footage and dramatic recreations to portray the addicts and their actions.

Each episode follows a person going deeper into criminality – whether a soccer mom becoming a Manhattan madam or a God-fearing woman robbing banks – as law enforcement officers, psychologists and family, friends and accomplices attempt to explain their addiction and actions.

The second project out of Story House Canada is The Gay Revolution:  From Pride to Power, about how the gay community went from outsiders to standing at the centre of cultural, political and social life.

The doc special, as it illuminates the ascendancy of the gay community, will also show how that rise to power followed the AIDS disease decimating its ranks.

Story House Media Group, based in Washington, D.C., earlier this week unveiled an expansion in Canada after an earlier foray into Germany with offices in Munich and Berlin.

Hutt, former senior vice president of original programming for truTV, and Low, former president of Red Apple Entertainment, will lead the Toronto office as they develop and oversee production of unscripted and scripted series for the U.S. and Canadian markets.