The Trap: How Poverty and Crime Can Exacerbate Each Other

By Travis Jones

I want to start off sharing some song lyrics with you. I still remember the first time I listened to this song and picked up on what was being said. In this song, Derek Minor is describing a family, deeply impacted by poverty, trying to figure out how to survive. The individual who he is speaking for does not have enough food to last them & their family until they get paid next, and so their solution is to turn to crime:

Open up the fridge, open up the fridge
Ain’t nothin’ but old milk and rice again
Got like 10 more days until my check hit
I don’t know how I’m about to feed my kids
Guess I grab the Sig* or the Draco*
Run up on whoever till I die or hit my payroll

–Robin, by Derek Minor**

The second verse of the song is even more tragic, describing the aftermath of their decision and how one adult’s decision sets the path for those who follow in their footsteps. But by far the most impactful lyric in the song comes at the end: 

You either die a hero or live to be a villain who 
Did the best he knew 
But either way the cycle continues

The thing that struck me about this song was that line, Did the best he knew. You see, if I was running out of food and was trying to figure out how to feed my family until I get paid, my first thought would be to turn to family and friends for help, then maybe check out a food bank. I was raised in the suburbs where we generally knew how to find help if we needed it. However, the person being described in this song either did not have that kind of support in their community, or did not know to turn to them. For them, the only option they saw was to turn to crime. Now I’m not saying that people are not responsible for the choices they make, but it ought to make us wonder, “Why don’t they see that there are more options?”

This is a destructive cycle seen in many impoverished communities across our country and around the world. This is what many refer to as “the trap,” because the systems set in place in many of these communities trap people into the circumstances, making it difficult to improve their situation regardless of how hard they work. Even if you’re minding your business and working hard, crimes committed against you can destroy all that you worked for.

This leads me to the topic we are addressing this month, taking a deeper look into crime and poverty, and their destructive, cyclical relationship. It can be a hard thing for those who’ve never experienced or known someone who has experienced the criminal legal system to understand how it can exacerbate poverty in one’s life. However, the statistics show that for most families that have been impacted by the criminal legal system, staying out of poverty is next to impossible. For instance, the National Library of Medicine has an article that delves into how difficult it is for those formerly incarcerated to find housing and keep it, and without stable housing, many individuals find themselves in the system again. They write that, “The two crises [mass incarceration and homelessness] interact with and worsen one another. Mass incarceration and homelessness are driven by the same structural factors and exacerbate one another in a feedback loop.”¹

When we consider crime and the effects it has on our communities, we must look deeper than just the incident taking place and the person committing the crime. We must look to see what factors brought someone to the point where they did this. Did someone previously commit a crime against them? Are they doing it out of desperation? And with those questions, we also must ask, “How can we create a community where people know they have more options than to turn to crime or violence in order to survive?” So what do you think? How can we make our communities a place where all people know there are more options to survive than turning to crime or violence? Let me know in the comments section below.

*A type of gun.

**For a deeper look at this song, check out THIS VIDEO.

¹Augustine, D., & Kushel, M. (2022). “Community Supervision, Housing Insecurity, & Homelessness.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 701(1), 152–171. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221113983.