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Cathryn Dalton
English 005-04
Professor Manter
The Individual’s Approach to Poverty:
Why Crime Rates Are High Among the Poor
American society has long valued the effort of the individual, creating a culture that
inspires an image of a “self-made man” and encourages self-sufficiency. This ideal motivates
average people to seek outlets to attain such independence, such as education and job
opportunities that will increase their chances of establishing a comfortable lifestyle for them and
their families. However, for many Americans, the resources necessary to obtaining such selfsufficiency are unavailable and unfamiliar. These Americans are deprived of the typical
“stepping stones” and instead are faced with obstacles that hinder their social progress. Despite
this, however, the ideal of individualism is still prevalent among those who live in poverty,
viewed as being the only way of reaching success. Therefore, people in desperation to conform
to society’s respected image of the persevering individual often turn to illegitimate means, crime,
to support themselves. Due to various circumstances that prevent the poor from taking a
individualistic approach to legitimately overcoming poverty, those who lead impoverished
lifestyles are statistically more likely to commit crime as opposed to those who are financially
stable. However, this method only proves to solidify one’s poverty, with entrance into the
criminal justice and prison systems making it virtually impossible for one to ever find the
opportunity they need to rise above. Although it is contrary to the American value of
individualism, assistance from others in the short run is necessary and pivotal in obtaining the
skills and ability to eventually become self-sufficient. Otherwise, those who attempt to neglect
the middle part of the overall process by resorting to crime end up limiting their opportunities in
a way that is contradictory to their initial goal of success.
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The tradition of American individualism has been present throughout society since its
formation. In our capitalistic society, value is assigned to private goods and businesses, and those
who make better for themselves without the help of others are held in high esteem. A prime
example of this is Horatio Alger’s story of Ragged Dick, a young boy who, by seeking out
opportunity, manages to lift himself up out of poverty with little help from others. Alger
encourages the American mentality of picking oneself up “by their bootstraps”, praising the man
who is able to exemplify dignity and strength in obtaining economic stability.
However, the “individualistic” approach to poverty is not always plausible or realistic. A
lack of resources, especially jobs, often hinders the American poor from making the money they
need to sustain themselves, compelling them to commit crime out of a strong need for financial
stability that does not involve reaching out to others for help. There is a direct correlation
between employment access and crime, according to a case study done by William Minor and
Fahui Wang in Cleveland in 1990. They found that “the less accessible jobs are, the more
appealing crime becomes as an alternative” (Minor and Wang 446). In areas where physical
access to legitimate jobs is limited, residents often turn to crime to achieve desired monetary
goals, thus raising the crime rate in their area (Minor and Wang 435). Physical access includes
more than just the literal inability to access jobs due to transportation issues and the like: it also
refers to a lack of resources that would qualify someone for legitimate work, such as “inadequate
education or training, racial discrimination, lack of knowledge of job opportunities, closed hiring
practices, and so forth” (Minor and Wang 436). The need for money is a definite motivation to
commit crimes such as theft or lucrative involvement in illegal trade businesses, like the “drug
game”. When the poor do not qualify for legitimate work, or they are unable to obtain it,
alternative ways of making money are sought out. Also, distance to and from work often factors
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into one’s decision to find and keep a legitimate job. Things that are taken into consideration are
travel costs, time, and whether or not the jobs are worth these things (Minor and Wang 437).
Sometimes, the crime takes place closer to their home than the places where legitimate work is
available. Oftentimes, the poor realize the benefits of working an illegitimate job as opposed to a
legitimate one, and for that reason choose to engage in crime. (Minor and Wang 435). This is
also known as the “strain theory”, or the tendency of the poor to undertake “illegitimate means to
obtain legitimate goals” (Reid 55). The already unemployed also have a higher probability to
commit crime because there is no job at stake for them. If they were to get caught engaging in
criminal behavior, they do not have much to lose (Minor and Wang 435). A broken educational
system leaves the poor without the qualifications they need to obtain work, and therefore the
poor of a capitalist system often have no choice but to commit crime in a society where money is
most important. Most criminals have very little educational background, with “state prisoners
averag[ing] just a tenth grade education, and about 70 percent have no high school diploma”
(Western and Petit). Without a decent educational background, one cannot meet the
qualifications necessary for decent paying jobs. Therefore, resorting to crime yields benefits
from work with very little qualifications necessary. A lack of resources, such as education and
jobs, in poor communities prevents the poor from obtaining what they need in order to adapt to
society’s image of the “rugged individual”. The means necessary to reach this goal are denied of
the poor, causing them to find other ways of becoming self-sufficient that do not require what is
unavailable to them, namely crime. The poor view themselves as separate from mainstream
society, forced to find their own individual methods of obtaining success. They therefore create
an environment unique to them and their circumstances that focuses on crime as the poor man’s
individual approach to self-sufficiency.
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The poor often feel marginalized and isolated from society, due to feelings of alienation
and a concentration on the individual. The poor sometimes feel they need have no one to rely on
but themselves, creating a self-sufficient attitude and environment that causes them to resist
reaching out for help in obtaining legitimate work. The poor understand the value American
society places on “pulling yourself by your bootstraps” and trusting only yourself to improve
your status in life. This bears striking similarity to Oscar Lewis’ idea of the “culture of poverty”,
which is the claim that the poor feel segregated from the rest of society, and therefore avoid
forging connections with other members of the lower class. Oscar Lewis’ “culture of poverty”
notion is reiterated in the research of J. Brian Atwood, who analyzes how “feelings of alienation,
exploitation, and dependency…contribute to a breakdown of social cohesion and to violent
conflict” (Atwood 161). This resistance to engage in societal affairs and reach out for helping
hand often hinders the poor from finding legitimate work, and therefore propels them into a life
of crime. Also, the manifestation of these feelings is often violent and/or destructive, producing
“antisocial behavior, anger, and desperation” as a subconscious way of gaining attention towards
the issues of an “unprotected illegal environment” (Atwood 161).
These feelings of alienation and isolation also sometimes evolve into psychological
disorders. Children who grow up in poverty are “more likely to exhibit impulsive, anti-social,
and depressive behavior” and develop “problem behaviors”, as well as “depression and social
withdrawal” that evolve into criminal tendencies. (Seccombe 1103). Children of poor families
also exhibit a decrease in academic achievement, and damage to their cognitive learning ability
(Seccombe 1101). These learning disabilities often hinder poor children from receiving the
education they need to one day earn quality jobs, thus perpetuating their cycle of poverty. Also,
“poor children have a higher probability of being abused and neglected and to be injured more
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severely than their more affluent peers” (Seccombe 1105). Histories of abuse often contribute to
development of psychological disorders, such as psychopathy, sociopathy, and anti-social
personality disorder (Pakes and Winstone 84). Many of these diseases cause someone to separate
themselves from the rest of society, as well as restrict someone from ever being fully accepted
and embraced by the other members of that society. For this reason, the people on the outskirts
of society resort to crime because they cannot retain work in mainstream society. Also, children
who are victims of abuse often have troubles in other aspects of their life, such as their education
(Currie and Tekin). Like learning disabilities, abuse often hinders children from receiving the
education they need to obtain legitimate work. Abuse also leads to high-risk and dangerous
behavior that evolves into crime, such as alcoholism and the use of illicit drugs (Currie and
Tekin). Environment strongly contributes to the probability of developing a damaged psyche that
will ultimately lead to criminal behavior. Starting from childhood, those who grow up in poor
neighborhoods begin to view crime as the only means available to them to become a part of an
American society that praises the individual. Adolescents living in poverty are also more likely
to commit crime than old people of the same circumstance (Levitt), and therefore are main
contributors to high crime rates in their areas. A housing experiment performed by Jens Ludwig,
Greg J.Duncan, and Paul Hirschfield sought out to prove that crime in such areas can be deemed
“contagious”, and oftentimes criminals, especially adolescents, are products of their
environment, merely conforming to social pressures and expectations. To prove this, the proctors
of the experiment removed several poor families with delinquent adolescents from their lowincome neighborhoods and placed them in more affluent neighborhoods only to find the crime
rate among the adolescents went down outside of the pressures of their former environment.
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The poor’s belief that they must maintain an individualistic attitude towards the rest of
society, separating themselves from any sort of assistance they may need, is actually preventing
them from ever overcoming poverty. By segregating themselves from the rest of society, the
poor are contributing the creation and development of trends and conditions in their
neighborhoods that prevent people from ever legitimately escaping poverty. Children who live in
poverty are deprived of a quality education that would help them support themselves later in life.
Residents of poor neighborhoods are helping create environments that breed and necessitate
crime as the only possible means of obtaining self-sufficiency. However, what they fail to
understand is choosing to focus on the “do-it-yourself” method proves inefficient and
unsuccessful in the long run once involvement in crime robs an individual of any chance they
had at legitimate opportunity. The poor need assistance in order to overcome their poverty,
assistance which is difficult to find in their neighborhoods comprised of people who are
unwilling to sacrifice their esteemed view of individualism in order to create an environment of
cooperation.
Poor neighborhoods often lack a tangible and strong social structure that would prevent
their residents from resorting to crime. According to Lesley William Reid’s “social
disorganization” theory, poor economic conditions yield a separation of people within a society
and a breakdown of traditional norms and community relationships (Reid 33). This argument,
again, is similar to Oscar Lewis’ idea of the “culture of poverty”. People who are living in
poverty segregate themselves from the rest of society, avoiding seeking out help to find
legitimate work. They are left without resources, and it is up to them to sustain themselves
individualistically. Social structures in poor neighborhoods are weak and prevent anyone from
obtaining any type of assistance they may need. Without social programs like job training, it is
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more difficult for the poor to obtain jobs on their own. Environments that lack social structure
are an inevitable result of the combination of strong desire to maintain a sense of individualism
and the lack of any type of resources, like jobs or education, that would allow that individualism
to grow and develop. The two concepts are related in such a way that individualism that sustains
itself with resources flourishes, while individualism that has nothing to rest on fails and causes
problems like high crime rates.
Finally, the fact that crime only lessens the poor’s chances of escaping poverty through
individualism is reinforced by the issue of recidivism, or the tendency of criminals to move in
and out of prison. High rates of crime among the poor can be attributed a criminal justice system
that does not assist the criminal poor in rehabilitation upon their release from prison. The
criminal poor often fit into the profile depicted above: they suffer from a lack of resources and
job opportunities, and they live in environments that encourage a perpetuate crime. After leaving
prison, they are often thrust back into the same environment that bred them in the first place,
leaving them no choice but to return to crime in order to survive. Society has virtually has
created a “class of prisoners”, a separate entity unto itself, that moves in and out of prison,
treated like “outliers” of society who are stripped of economic opportunities, work experience,
and the like (Western and Petit). This “social class” does not have the same economic
opportunities of other members of society, and therefore have limited “social mobility” that
makes inequality an unchangeable social norm (Western and Petit). The recurring criminal
behavior of these prisoners, mostly African-American males, is necessitated by very low levels
of education that prevent them from obtaining decent paying jobs, with “prisoners themselves
[being] drawn overwhelmingly from the least educated” (Western and Petit). Therefore,
recidivism is directly related to the lack of resources that allow for economic opportunities
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among the poor. Western and Petit assert that work is also hard to obtain for ex-prisoners due to
the stigma that surrounds a criminal conviction that causes employers to be hesitant to hire an exconvict. Also, due to their forced removal from the work force, ex-prisoners have less work
experience to draw from when applying for jobs (Western and Petit). Again, former prisoners
return to the rationale that they can obtain more benefits working illegally than legally, assuming
circumstances have not changed for them since their entrance into the prison system.
Furthermore, considering environment is a main contributing factor to someone’s likelihood to
commit crime, those who return from prison to a community where crime is prevalent will most
likely be unable to separate themselves from the influence of criminal behavior. As mentioned
earlier, crime is often “contagious” in poor areas with high crime rates, and therefore
unavoidable in some respects. Prisoners are not given the economic support necessary to prevent
them from falling back into the cycle of crime upon their release from prison, thus perpetuating
their criminal tendencies. Therefore, overall, crime that is aimed at creating self-sufficiency
actually forces one to live in poverty for the long-term. Once one enters into the so-called
“class of prisoners”, it is virtually impossible to escape. The benefits yielded from committing
the crime in the first place disappear, never to be reclaimed
The only solutions that promise to help the poor escape their circumstances are often
overlooked as being too contradictory to the American value of individualism. However, without
temporary reliance on others and a strong sense of cooperation and togetherness, the poor cannot
hope to one day obtain self-sufficiency. The environments the poor live in do not provide for the
type of individualism they see as necessary for survival: they lack resources like jobs and
education that help the poor approach bettering themselves armed and prepared with the skills
they need. Programs like job training, which help the poor obtain the skills they need to obtain
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legitimate work, such as interview skills and education consultation, and welfare, which give the
poor temporary government assistance while they seek independent ways of working, are not
taken advantage of. Education is seen as too difficult to obtain in neighborhoods where the
systems are broken and funded poorly. Instead, individuals decide to take action through
illegitimate ways of making money, crime: crime that, in turn, prevents individuals from ever
reaching their ideal state of self-sufficiency. A society that prides itself on being made up of
“rugged individuals” is actually robbing its members of any hope of being independent by
making anything less than self-sufficiency seem unappealing.
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Works Cited
Alger Jr., Horatio. Ragged Dick. Ragged Dick Series. New York, NY: Modern Library, Random
House Inc., 2005.
Atwood, J. Brian. “The Link Between Poverty and Violent Conflict.” New England Journal of
Public Policy. 159-165. Web. 7 Oct. 2010.
Currie, Janet and Erdel Tekin. “Does Child Abuse Cause Crime?” Columbia University,
Department of Economics. New York: 2006. Print. Web.
Kling, Jeffrey and Jens Ludwig. “Is Crime Contagious?” Journal of Law and Economics. 2006.
Print. Web.
Levitt, Steven D. “Alternative Strategies for Identifying the Link Between Unemployment and
Crime.” Journal of Quantitative Criminology 17.4. (2001): 377-390. SpringerLink. Web.
7 Oct. 2010.
Ludwig, Jens and Greg J.Duncan, and Paul Hirschfield. "Urban Poverty and Juvenile Crime:
Evidence From A Randomized Housing-Mobility Experiment." Quarterly Journal of
Economics 116.2 (2001): 655. Academic OneFile. Web. 8 Oct. 2010.
Minor, William W. and Fahui Wang. “Where the Jobs Are: Employment Access and Crime
Patterns in Cleveland.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92.3. (2002):
435-450. JSTOR. Web. 13 Oct 2010.
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Pakes, Francis, and Jane Winstone. Psychology and Crime: Understanding and Tackling
Offending Behaviour. Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2007. Print. eBrary.
Reid, Lesley Williams. Crime in the City: A Political and Economic Analysis of Urban Crime.
New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2003. Print. eBrary.
Seccombe, Karen. “Families in Poverty in the 1990’s: Trends, Causes, Consequences, and
Lessons Learned.” Journal of Marriage and Family 62.4. (2000): 1094-1113. JSTOR.
Web. 12 Oct 2010.
Western, Bruce, and Becky Pettit. "Incarceration & Social Inequality." Daedalus 139.3 (2010):
8+. Academic OneFile. Web. 11 Oct. 2010.