Is Poverty a Crime

Is poverty a crime? By: Kendra Curran

Poverty is a crime to a certain degree, although in saying that it’s not a crime to be poor, and he who is poor is not a criminal. The bottom line is though we as a human race strive, struggle and fight; often work as much as we can so we will never be in poverty. For poverty can run through all class, even to the very wealthy, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t give everything they have to get out of poverty. For stated by a man named Carlyle “The hell of which Englishmen are most afraid is the hell of poverty”. If a man voluntary chooses to do nothing in his life but sit on the sides of the street and beg, that could very well be his choice and hurt nobody but himself. But on the other hand if that man had a wife, children and it was his duty to support them then that in itself is a crime. And he is pushing poverty not only on himself but on the others, that is when that poverty becomes a serious crime, and should be seen as a crime by the government. With saying that it should certainly be seen as a crime to force poverty on those people around you, but today’s world it is not seen as a crime. For poverty is not just an individual crime e but it’s a social crime for everyone poor, or rich are responsible. And therefore we pay for as a society through paying through our taxes to support the people who decide to do nothing with their lives and not strive, stuggle and fight like the rest of the population. “Think for yourselves; ask yourselves whether this wide-spread fact of poverty is not a crime, and a crime for which every one of us, man and woman, who does not do what he or she can do to call attention to it and do away with it, is responsible.” Quoted by Henry