Poverty Is Not The Cause of Criminal Behavior

American Thinker ^ | 08/22/2014 | By Patricia L. Dickson

[SeekAndFind]

As the events in Ferguson, Missouri continue to unfold, a common excuse being offered for the riots and looting is poverty and income inequality.

An article written by retired NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar outlines what he calls the reasons for a coming race war that stems from class warfare and systemic racism. The article was so full of liberal talking points and delusional distortions that I had to take a break after each paragraph.

He, like others, claims that the rich are somehow holding back poor blacks in order to maintain control of their riches. He also claims the rich are hurting the poor by lobbying to cut food stamps, refusing to extend unemployment benefits and refusing to give relief to burden of student debt.

Everything that he mentioned is something that would require government intervention. In other words, the government could fix poverty if politicians would just all agree. Liberals have all reached a consensus that Ferguson’s rioting and looting are the results of poverty. Blaming criminal behavior on poverty is not a new hypothesis. Sociologists and criminologists have done studies on the topic dating back to the 1960s. According to the Heritage Foundation, the real cause of crime is the breakdown of the family:

* Over the past thirty years, the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers.

* High-crime neighborhoods are characterized by high concentrations of families abandoned by fathers.

* State-by-state analysis by Heritage scholars indicates that a 10% increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes leads typically to a 17% increase in juvenile crime.

* The rate of violent teenage crime corresponds with the number of families abandoned by fathers.

* The father's authority and involvement in raising his children are also a great buffer

[driftless2]

When I was a young child my parents and my five siblings lived in a basement house for five or six years. My father worked hard at his regular job, and when he came home, worked on building the rest of the house. We were poor. Not a lot of snacks or new clothes. But we children didn't know we were poor.

By the time I was in my mid-teens, thanks to my father's hard work, we were approaching middle class.

At no time during the period when my family was poor, was acting up and committing crimes tolerated. Poverty is a state of mind. If you think you're going to fail, you probably will.

[driftless2]

"direct correlation"

You are of course correct. But even many big name conservatives refuse to make that connection, and wrongly blame black problems on Dem politics. Dem politicians often make things worse, but they don't create low IQs. It is the third rail of societal problems. Talking about it will get the talkers relegated to the nether regions. Like John Derbyshire.

Nothing can be done for the Black Underclass who terrorize every city they inhabit. Failure to recognize that fact will cause huge societal problems until it is recognized. But I'm not holding by breath.

[Mears]

“My mother told me Depression stories about people taking their bedding to parks—whole families—in the summer to sleep, because the parks were cooler than the buildings. They did so without fear of being robbed or murdered.”

---

I was born in 1932——no one had much money when I grew up.

There was virtually no street crime and living in a city we used public transportation any time of night.

Different times.

.

[Pining_4_TX]

http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/

[BatGuano]

Years ago, a black woman addressed a gathering of “Promise Keepers” in Washington. She told them that black people can look to and blame the Four “Ds” for their situation.

DUMB..don't respect education or those who try to get ahead in school.
DEPRESSED.. blaming everybody for your situation and realize that is is really you who are to blame..drink, use drugs and join a gang to try to gain some self esteem.
DEPENDENT..stay on the welfare rolls, encourage others to get on and join together to demand your rights to other people's money.
DEMOCRAT..keep electing those great givers of the public money. They have your best interests foremost in their minds.
PS. Those D’crats are only interested in keeping you folks welded to the first “3 D's”.

[dfwgator]

It’s Slavery without the Work. But it’s still slavery just the same.

[EDINVA]

I’ve said for some time now that the situation could be over soon enough IF you could get a generation of young black women to just cross their legs till their boyfriends walked down the aisle with them.

As it is, they’ve been encouraged for half a century to produce “assets” in the form of more and more children who bring in more and more $ in the form of welfare benefit. Just so long as there’s no daddy around. It’s a really sad and totally unnecessary situation.

[ClearBlueSky]

All too true. The ‘poverty’ excuse is laughable when you see a woman with expensive extensions, fabulous nails, designer shoes who is driving a new SUV, DRAGGING a toddler and cursing at her, or talking on the phone while the little kid trails 20 feet behind her in a big box store. She then grabs the kid and threatens to beat it’s f-ing a** if it don’t listen! My sister actually saw such an individual WATCHING her toddler defecate on the floor, doing nothing to stop him. She spent hundreds in the store and drove away like all ‘poor’ people do, in a luxury car.There are, no doubt, desperately poor people- but the majority claiming ‘poverty’ are sure looking upscale!

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I wouldn’t call it “sad” as such license leads to several derivative evils, eventually causing a slow and steady self-extermination of slave-descended black Americans.

While this decline is concealed in the statistics by ever increasing numbers of African immigrants who do not share, and reject this toxic culture, it is there none the less.

In NYC alone, for example, about 30,000 black infants are now aborted each year, a majority of the abortions performed in the city. And that alone should be glaringly obvious in the statistics, but it isn’t.

[EDINVA]

Agree, there is a need to separate out the more recent immigrants from Africa and the islands who are almost polar opposite of the native-born. But something has to be done to change that self-destructive culture in the native population. Fifty years in some families is 3-4 generations. No adults before they’re parents. Not good at all.