Circle of Pain: the Relationship Between Poverty and Crime

In the South Bronx of New York City a man named Cephus grew up. His father was never around and his mother beat him. He joined a gang when he was still in grade-school and by the time he was twelve there was a death contract hanging over his head. But, miraculously, at the age of twelve Cephus’ life was transformed in a church service with his mother, when he decided that God wanted him to leave his gang. Through a series of shocking coincidences Cephus was able to exit his gang unscathed and start a new life working for his church.

During spring break this year I spent seven days in the South Bronx with the Harvest Center Church and Cephus. During our time there, in between serving at soup kitchens and praying for hurting people, I had the opportunity to hear Cephus’ story and gain an understanding of the philosophy of the inner city. “It’s about survival here,” Cephus told us, “people here are just doing what they can to survive. That’s why you see so much drug dealing by kids on the street…I mean, their mom can’t afford to buy them shoes for school—so how can they get the money?” Cephus continued, saying, in the Bronx, they do things to survive, but, in the end, put themselves right back where they started. Kids sell drugs to buy shoes to go to school to get out of that place, but they get caught and end up stuck there because of their bad choices. He joined a gang to feel safe and secure in his neighborhood, but ended up with a death contract on his head—and so many of the other shady behaviors of the inner city end up in the same cycle. The very thing that they try so hard to avoid is what they find themselves bound to.

My conversations with Cephus provoked me to ask some serious questions about the inner city—questions familiar to those in sociological or criminal justice fields: Why are crime and poverty so closely linked? Does poverty cause crime or does crime cause poverty? Cephus seemed to believe that both things fed into each other—that crime and poverty are both cause and effect in this cycle of the inner city. Poverty causes crime by depriving people of legitimate means to rise above their circumstances and leave the inner city. But crime also causes poverty by holding people back from obtaining legitimate employment and a healthy income.

While Cephus, being immersed in the culture of the South Bronx, sees an endless cycle between poverty and crime, it seems that most people outside of the inner city see the issue one-sidedly. It is recognized and accepted that poverty contributes to crime rates, but we often forget that crime also contributes to poverty.

As Paul Stretesky points out, crime is often a result of the social isolation and deviant subculture of the impoverished inner cities. In the ghetto crime is more accepted and normal. They assume that their neighbor is a drug dealer and their kids are going to get into bloody fights. Cephus’ mother, when he was growing up, told him to beat up the bullies who were threatening him and called him a wimp if he wouldn’t do so. The subculture of the inner cities often promotes violence and deviance as a means of survival; and when it does not promote it at least resigns to accept. In the words of Stretesky, “impoverished communities have formed a set of alternative, unconventional norms in order to survive on the street” (Stretesky 820). These “street smarts” are essential in the inner city, but they breed “non-conventional attitudes and behaviors [that] produce a subculture of violence” (Stretesky 818). Thus, the crime of the inner cities is either ignored or encouraged by this subculture as it relates to the survival of residents.

The fact that poverty contributes to crime is also supported by the statistics regarding welfare: “countries spending 12 percent to 14 percent of their Gross Domestic Product on welfare have lower rates of violent crime than the United States, which spends only 4 percent of its G.D.P. on welfare” (Soering). According to Soering the issue has been, and will continue to be, money. This is also illustrated by the statistics regarding drug use and drug dealing: “the primary sellers of drugs are usually ghetto dwellers, but the primary users are often wealthy suburbanites. The latter have money; the former need it” (“Causes…”). Kids sell drugs to buy sneakers to go to school. They set legitimate goals for themselves, but a lack of money pushes them into deviance in order to reach those goals. They say that money is the root of all evil, but, it would seem, a lack of money breeds just as much deviance as an abundance of it—if not more.

Because of the deviant subculture’s radically different standards and because of a simple lack of the funds necessary to survive many of the impoverished are driven into deviance. Crime rates are inseparably linked with poverty. Poverty catalyzes crime.

But, we must not forget, crime also feeds poverty. According to Eugene Volokh: “crime disproportionally victimizes the poor and it keeps them poor, partly by diminishing their assets…but chiefly by keeping their neighborhoods poor.” Just as poverty, being a lack of resources, causes crime, so also crime, by vandalizing or removing resources, contributes to poverty. Someone living in an impoverished inner city area is much more likely to have their car vandalized or stolen, their home broken into, and the few material resources that they possess taken from them. And, when these things happen, the poor are not able to replace or repair that which was stolen or damaged. They are set back even further from the ability to pull themselves out of their situation. Once, Pastor Jim Cymbala, who pastors a church in inner city Brooklyn, asked his congregation to raise their hands if they had ever been ripped off. Almost every hand in the building went up—who has not been victimized in the inner city? (9).

The reason that those in poverty are more likely to be victims of crime is twofold: location and resources. Because crime is caused by poverty, impoverished areas are high risk: location. And because of their lack of money they also lack basic protective resources. While suburban neighborhoods have neighborhood watch programs and nearby supervised youth programs the inner cities have little to none of the same. Stretesky says, “residents of impoverished and socially isolated communities are likely to have less access to police resources, supervised youth programs, neighborhood watches, and informal community networks that may deter…potential criminals” (818). Thus, the poor are trapped in crime, and crime robs them of the resources that would bring them out of poverty. It is an endless cycle.

Both analysis’ are incomplete without each other. Poverty and crime are an endless cycle, ever feeding into one another. Neither can be separated as the sole cause or the sole effect of the other. They play both roles: they are both cause and effect.

While I worked in the inner city and heard the stories of those around me I was most struck by two statements that Cephus made. “It’s about survival here,” he said, “and, in trying to survive, we are killing ourselves.” It is the attempt to survive—to reach the goals that society has set before them, to rise from poverty and into wealth, to move away from the high crime of the inner city, to be comfortable and cared for—that drives many into drug dealing, stealing, gang activity, and many other types of deviance. From that lifestyle of crime many find themselves trapped within the very thing they sought to leave. For example, when an actual job becomes available to someone who has been selling drugs for a long time they realize how bound to the dealing they actually are. Often the job, though it would support them and bring them toward their goal of leaving the ghetto and joining middle class society, makes less money than the drugs, and very often the dealer chooses to continue dealing. Another example is that of a single mother trying to make ends meet. When her car is stolen and she has to use all of her savings to replace it she finds herself back at square one again, unable to leave a life of poverty. Crime traps people in poverty—both the criminals and those who live near them and are victimized. Cephus is correct: in the attempt to survive and thrive the inner cities are dying.

There is a great need in the impoverished inner cities across America. We need to address, simultaneously, both crime and poverty. Our material resources may combat poverty, but, in addition to that practical help, we must fight the crime of the inner cities. Because that crime is, in many ways, linked to a deviant subculture of values, it is essential that those values and their accepted means be changed in the minds and lives of those in the inner city. We can all take away a lesson from the Harvest Center Church in the center of New York City’s South Bronx. A small group of people working very hard to provide youth and kids programs and to support the families of those youth and children have already seen a great difference in many lives. Many are not yet out of poverty, but have removed themselves from the cycle of crime and deviance. Like Cephus, they have walked away from the bad and live for something greater. The unending cycle of crime and poverty can be broken, but it will take, not only a change of mindset in the inner city, but a change in you and I as well.