Violent crime analysis: The cause is poverty

by Christopher “Talib” Spencer

“The capitalist society is violent by its very nature. The exploitation of workers, causing them to live on the edge of poverty, is a form of violence. To assume that wage slavery is not violent is patently false.” – Maoist periodical, 1970

Poverty_is_a_weapon_of_mass_destruction, Violent crime analysis: The cause is poverty, Abolition Now! In order to effectively challenge the prison industrial complex growth, we must challenge and destroy the root causes of crime and not just tackle crime, which is only an effect and not the cause of the problem.

We must begin to look at the problem that causes crime, which is POVERTY. All crime can be traced to objective socio-economic conditions – socially productive or counterproductive activity. Crime is a social problem; it stems from a lack of collective societal input. Remember it takes a village to raise a child.

In the essence of crime you have the breeding factor, and the breeding factor is something that produces crime or, you can say, causes crime.

Poverty breeds crime and in the process of the manufacturing of poverty, here comes the violence, here comes the insanity, here comes the drug epidemic, here comes the deadbeat dad syndrome and, last but not least, here comes the steel enclosed prison society. All of these vices are the effect and not the cause of unequal distribution of wealth.

Another factor that we must keep in mind is that wage slavery is also violent; capitalism is violent. Anytime someone has a job and still cannot provide for his or her family at least on a subsistence level, then a crime of violence is being perpetuated against him.

And if this person goes out and commits a crime of violence because he or she has been marginalized by America’s lack of socio-economic contract, then he or she is really the victim of injustice. Now, in no way am I justifying the crime committed by the alleged criminal. I’m only saying that a crime that leads to a crime needs to be addressed; also the parallax needs to be destroyed.

Poverty breeds crime and in the process of the manufacturing of poverty, here comes the violence, here comes the insanity, here comes the drug epidemic, here comes the deadbeat dad syndrome and, last but not least, here comes the steel enclosed prison society.

The solution that I propose to this problem is that progressive people need to have a forum with each other and members of their respective communities and come up with some type of valid solution to be brought before Congress or the World Court for this violence that’s being heaped upon the citizens of America.

So in closing, I would like to say that until poverty, the root cause of mass incarceration, is destroyed, we will see a steady rise of citizens in the prison industrial complex.

Send our brother some love and light: Christopher “Talib” Spencer, 521940, Louisiana State Prison, Camp D Hawk 2R-13, Angola, LA 70712. This story was transcribed by Adrian McKinney.