Poverty and war

Poverty has been an issue of global concern in the recent past. It is a state of being financially incapacitated to meet ones basic needs in the society. Regardless of the economic status of a country, poverty remains one of the major challenges anyone vying for a presidential position has to mention in their campaign meetings. It limits the opportunities, options and choices a person can make in life. In addition, poverty has a direct link with food hence the global food crisis. Poverty means a person can not access the primary health care, basic education and even balanced diet which in turn lead to malnutrition and thereafter death of an individual.

Poverty and crime have a very close relationship. The highest crime rates in the United States are recorded among the low income earners in the urban neighborhoods largely who due to unemployment patterns have inadequate and narrow ways of survival (Gaines & Miller, 2008). This is a common phenomenon in major cities around the globe. In most cases these culprits have low education and therefore their job choice is limited and therefore turns to criminal activities as a source of getting some income (Gaines & Miller, 2008). However, there are also some wealthy tycoons in towns around the globe who have close links with criminal activities. Poverty therefore necessarily causes not crime but to some extent it can also be urged that it is the crime which causes poverty. Though, poverty, regardless of the category, fires up most of the criminal acts.

It can not be denied however that most criminal activities central aim, if well investigated, is to get a financial benefit out of the process. In the swearing in of a new chief of OEO, the president in his fight against poverty said “there is something mighty wrong when somebody for the highest public office bemoans violence on the streets but votes against the war on poverty, votes against the war on civil rights act, and votes against major educational bills that have come before him as a legislator. The thing to do is not to talk about crime; the thing to do is to fight and work and vote against a crime” (Steigerwald & Flamm, 2008). Crime therefore is ‘virus’ that needs to be worked out of any society if poverty has to be a thing of the past in such a case. A fight on either leads to the proportionate decrease of the other.

War against poverty can be in a large way be war against crime in the sense that; normally, if the society is financially empowered, there is no needs to engage in such unacceptable behavior unless somebody has some social and psychological disorders in their growth and development. Absence of poverty bonds the society and the level of rivalry is highly reduced, and in turn the motivator to these indecent behaviors will actually be extinct.

List of references;

Gaines, K. L. and Miller, L. R. (2008). Criminal Justice in Action. Cengage Learning. 5th ed.

Steigerwald, D. and Flamm, W. M. (2008). Debating the 1960s: liberal, conservative, and radical perspectives; Debating. Rowman & Littlefield