Violent Crime In Cities On The Rise

Violent crime is on the rise in cities, according to a piece in the NYT. According to the article, it mostly involves low income young men in their late teens and early twenties. Why would so many young people, who have their entire lives before them, want to engage in activities that are sure to destroy their futures?

For many years, various “experts” on both the right and the left have grappled with this question. The right tend to blame the country’s “moral decline,” in essence, that the poor are somehow morally inferior to everyone else, and that gays and feminists are to blame for the rise in crime. Many on the left tend to see the problem in purely economic terms, or as a simple question of gun control, believing that by increasing money available for social programs and limiting access to legal firearms, that the crime rate will go down.

But it’s not just a question of morality, or laziness on the part of young people and their parents. Neither is it a question of gun control–people will find ways to kill each other without guns, just as they did for thousands of years before the invention of gunpowder. Though those who see violence as a symptom of poverty are partly right–and social programs that benefit the poor have done much to prevent widespread hunger and homelessness, especially among children, this still isn’t the whole answer.

The truth is that most people would rather not be reduced to surviving on charity and handouts. They would rather go out, work a job, and raise their families without outside intervention or help. They want to do more than just scrape by from day to day–they want to have a real life, and a real future. They want a fair shot at the American Dream.

Racism, sexism, and the myriad other ugly forms of discrimination in this country all but guarantee that anyone who is not a white Protestant male is going to face some pretty rough odds in achieving the Dream. Higher education is out of reach for many poor people–even those who can get financial assistance must balance the need to eat and keep a roof over their heads with their studies–not to mention the fact that K-12 education in poor districts leaves many students ill-prepared for college. Globalization continues to ship good paying jobs outside the country, forcing even many educated people into low paying service jobs.

Young people turn to crime when they lose hope that they can have a future–not just a future that consists of working 16 hours a day at a dead end job in order to barely survive,  or a life on the public dole, but a life that is worth looking forward to.

The real question is not why violent crime is up–the real–and truly painful question, is what we must do in order to give our young people hope.