Does Poverty Lead to Engaging in Criminal Activity?
Within the African community of the Kipsigis, in the South Rift valley Province of Kenya, there is a common saying which is used to insult someone who is lazy and is bound to die poor. The saying goes “May thieves never visit you.” The assumption in the saying is that thieves will only visit the one who has something to be stolen. Hence, the saying expresses a sarcastic wish on the lazy one that ‘may you be so poor that even thieves cannot think of visiting you because you have nothing valuable in your house.’ Inherent within the saying is also the assumption that ‘thieves’ steal because they need something they do not have, i.e. they are poor.

It is commonly assumed that there is a direct causal link between poverty and crime. Hardly does a day pass before the highlights in, say, a newspaper, radio or TV, report of crime associated with the poorest areas of any subject society. We are more easily appalled to hear of a burglary in those places where the rich and the well-off live than in the slums, for example. But, is it always true that poverty is an impetus to crime? This paper challenges this assumption by showing how an unclear definition of what we mean by ‘poverty’ and ‘crime’ or ‘criminal activities’ makes it difficult not only to identify crime or a criminal activity but also to prevent it.

What, then, can be conceived as a more elaborate definition of poverty? According to the Scottish Poverty Information Unit (as cited in the BBC, 2012), “poverty is defined relative to the standards of living in a society at a specific time. People live in poverty when they are denied an income sufficient for the material needs and when these circumstances exclude them from taking part in activities which are an accepted part of daily life in society.”

Certain facts can be deduced from the above definition. Firstly, the relative definition of poverty can only imply that at any given time in society, irrespective of the general state of human development, someone will be described as poor, even if such a person may not regard himself or herself that way. If the assumption that poverty leads to criminal activity holds true, then this would also mean there are criminals at every level of society, and crime can never be thwarted. But supposing that some other crime of denial of a right to access basic needs, hence ‘artificial’ or ‘man-made poverty’, then the real criminal is not the one who steals to satisfy his/her needs, but the one who denies the said ‘thief’ his/her right to access what he/she needs. In this case, the crime committed by this ‘real criminal’ is not out of poverty, but out of, say greed, or spite – may be causing scarcity in order to hike the prices of what he supplies in exchange for money, hence make more profit.

This brings us to the second implication. When we say “people live in poverty when they are denied an income sufficient for the material needs”, it means that the real cause of criminal activity may not be poverty, but the act of ‘denying others an income sufficient for material needs.’ This denial is the crime and poverty is only the result. As such, crime leads to poverty. This also can be said of corruption in public offices by the rich political leaders. When such people embezzle what could be used to improve the living standards of people, they commit crime which then leads to mass poverty. The attempt to survive or overthrow a system run by such people may be described as a form of criminal activity, but one that is justified by virtue of the fact that it is a product of greater crime.

The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee (as cited in BBC, 2012) argues that: There are basically three current definitions of poverty in common usage: ...Absolute poverty is defined as the lack of sufficient resources with which to keep body and soul together. Relative poverty defines income or resources in relation to the average. It is concerned with the absence of material needs to participate fully in accepted daily life. Social exclusion is a new term by the Government...a shorthand label for what can happen when individuals or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown.

Generally speaking, what comes out very clearly from the above description of poverty forms is what forms the second major argument of this paper: sometimes, poverty and crime are two isolated results of greater problems. The problem is that sometimes, the two have the same causes and are confused as the causes of each other. For example, unemployment could be as equal a cause of poverty as of crime. But which one comes first. If a person steals because he doesn’t have any other source of livelihood, meaning he might die of hunger (poverty implied here), is it true to say that he stole because he was poor, or because he was unemployed? It could be he stole merely to cast invective on the Government which is responsible for ensuring all find employment.

What then is crime? If we go by the assumption that crime is any form of activity that is perpetrated (intently or by accident) by one or more people to bring harm to other human beings, then crime encompasses a whole chunk of human acts of unkindness.

From the above arguments, crime then could then be the cause of poverty. But poverty could also cause crime. The way out is to make it clear that people have choices. These choices may not be obvious outside. Sometimes, circumstances could make people resort to inappropriate means to survive. Crime does not always have to lead to poverty. The key is to try to focus development activities in improving the human character to resist crime within oneself and by others. The strength of human character will make us share what we have to prevent others feeling like victims who have the right to harm in order to survive.

References
Scottish Poverty Information Unit (2012, May 2). Definitions of Poverty. In BBC. Modern Studies. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/int/ms/health/wealth/def_of_poverty/definitions.shtml
The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Committee (2012, May 2). Definitions of Poverty. In BBC. Modern Studies. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/int/ms/health/wealth/def_of_poverty/definitions.shtml