‘We live in a system that manufactures sorrow,
spilling it out of its mill, the waters of sorrow,
ocean, storm, and we drown down, dead, too
soon… uprising is the reversal of the system,
and revolution is the turning of tides.’
– Julian Beck
‘Poverty is the worst form of violence.’
– Mahatma Gandhi
Is it a crime to be poor? Yes, because
crime doesn’t pay and you can’t either.
Poverty is used to put or keep people
in jail, the criminal justice system
has flaws that disproportionately
punish the poor and reward the rich.
But poverty is fine, don’t worry about it.
It’s not causing crime; you can just look
at those folks and see their criminality,
they inhabit areas plagued by violence.
Between one pause and another,
between one hearing and another,
between one meal and the next,
between aspiration and income.
Criminalisation of poverty is costly,
economically and socially, and poverty
causes crime. People can argue but
hundreds of people are sentenced
each year for begging or sleeping rough.
It is hard to live on the street like this,
with no stability or quality of life and it
is hard on poor children to understand
why they are often treated like criminals;
poor people live their entire lives in fear.
Between one pause and another,
between one hearing and another,
between one meal and the next,
between aspiration and income.
Time in prison creates significant barriers
for people to find a home or employment;
being poor is being a victim of crime and
being part of the criminal system itself.
Poverty-stricken people are encouraged to
plead guilty to crimes they did not commit
and kept in confinement. Deprivation
causes inequality, marginalisation and
subcultures, significant causes of crime.
People are richer and poverty is a crime.
Between one pause and another,
between one hearing and another,
between one meal and the next,
between aspiration and income.
© Rupert M Loydell
.