The Crime of Poverty

It happened in a small village in Southeast Asia. The event: a mother beating her child. Tears poured out from the mother’s eyes as she flogged her ten-year old daughter. She was told that her child had stolen 500 “dong” (a US dollar is worth approximately 18,000 dong) from another kid in the neighborhood. There was no direct evidence of the alleged crime. There could not be any: the child never committed the theft. The accusations were based on the fact that the “culprit” belonged to the poorest family in the neighborhood: she is poor, she must have stolen the money. Out of self-pity, shame, and anger, the mother gave her innocent child a good whipping while cursing fate. The child took the beating and grew up learning that her poverty was the worst of all crimes.

The little Southeast Asian girl was not unhappy because of the absence of an adequate material life. She played in the fields, she played in the streets, she played with other poor children in the neighborhood. Her mother could not afford to send her to school, but she found ways to make herself useful. Every day she went to the well on the other side of the village to fetch water for her family. She helped her mother sell cigarettes on the streets. She took care of her baby brother for several hours a day. She cooked. She washed dirty clothes. And she played. As a matter of fact, she kept herself quite busy, never having time to feel sad or to worry about her future. Now and then, people reminded her of the fact that she was poor; and the poverty label they put upon her made her feel as if she was subhuman or guilty of a repugnant crime. The physical punishment she received the day she was accused of stealing was not unbearable, but the cause of that punishment smothered her remaining resistance, stripped away her dignity, and left her bare and unprotected from the cruel judgments of a conventional society.

Poverty casts a stigma on those it befriends. That stigma exists everywhere, in third-world countries as well as in wealthy nations such as the U.S. Take for instance the story of Mrs. Jefferson in San Jose, California. The event took place in the working area of the County Welfare Office. It was three days before Christmas. The Welfare Office was having a “toy drive” for children of welfare recipients. Mrs. Jefferson took her little boy to the Welfare Office so that he could get his “present.” And indeed he did. The welfare workers had collected quite a selection of toys, and little Joey was able to find a nice teddy bear. But little Joey, marveled by the toy collection, did not want to leave. Instead, he kept digging into the boxes. Leaving the boy there enjoying himself, Mrs. Jefferson went to the ladies room. When passing by the clerk’s desk, she overheard a worker asking the clerk: “Who let these people go inside the working area?… Don’t you know that they may steal our stuff?… Can you try to get them out?… Get those toy boxes out to the lobby.” Mrs. Jefferson stopped. Suppressing the urge to relieve herself, she returned to her son, took the teddy bear out of his hand, put it on a table, and led the boy out of the office. On her way out, she stopped at the clerk’s desk and said to her: “Merry Christmas.” The clerk looked up, smiled at her, and replied: “Merry Christmas.” After long working hours, she was happy to receive greetings from a client.

Fearing that the poor are prone to commit criminal activities is not a necessary excuse for alienating them from the rest of the society. The poverty label itself is a sufficient cause for discrimination. Consider the case of Mrs. Ramirez. She was waiting at the checkstand in a crowded supermarket. Her little girl was asking her to buy a doll displayed nearby. “I don’t have money, Maria,” Mrs. Ramirez told her child. “But you do, mommy, you are holding money in your hand,” Maria insisted. “This is not money, Maria. These are food stamps. I cannot buy a doll with these.” As she was trying to explain to her child, Mrs. Ramirez noticed a change in the cashier clerk’s facial expression. The friendly smile which was there just a minute ago had disappeared. She felt upon her a deep and penetrating gaze. “That will be twenty-one ninety, Ma’am,” a cold voice resounded. Giving the Food Stamps to the clerk, Mrs. Ramirez had the definite feeling that eyes were all upon her. She gathered her strength, looked up, took the grocery bag, and walked out, wishing that she were able to disappear from the crowd.

Why does the stigma exists? It must be because society perceives that the poor deserve it, and therefore discrimination against them can be well justified. After all, aren’t they immoral? In many countries, the poor even sell their children for puny sums of money. And all over the world, poor women sell their bodies to make their living. Aren’t they also criminals? Don’t poor people steal, rob, prostitute? Don’t they drink in public, litter the parks, and frequently disturb the peace? For all the wrongs they do, the decent society still bears the burden to support them. If anyone disagrees, let him (or her) go to the welfare office and check it out. He will be amazed to find out how many poor are receiving public assistance. And he will be told that these people refuse to work. They are the cause for the economy to go bad. The decent person has no choice but to discriminate against the poor.

Come to think about it, poverty is a crime.

Jenny Do