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Not Guilty by Reason of Poverty:

A Position Paper on the Decriminalization of Poverty

Deborah Rutherford

Southern New Hampshire University

SOC324: Sociology of Crime and Violence

Professor Amanda Eaton

April 19, 2024

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Not Guilty by Reason of Poverty: A Position Paper on the Decriminalization of Poverty

Introduction

Overview

In 2011, a woman in Maine got a speeding ticket. She was unable to get time off work to

contest it and did not have the money to pay for it. She had no family except her two kids under

two and their father, who was himself an unemployed student. Without a workable solution to re-

solve the ticket, her license was suspended. However, she lived in rural Maine and needed to

work, so she continued driving. She kept getting caught. Multiple suspensions led to a three-year

habitual offender revocation. Without a way to daycare, she was only able to work limited hours

at minimum-wage jobs near home. After the revocation was up, she resumed driving, but was

pulled over for a headlight and found that she had missed a reinstatement fee, leading to another

suspension. This time, the state imposed an alternative sentence of five-day residential commu-

nity service and a $500 fee. Unable to pay the fee, she took the ten-day jail sentence. One speed-

ing ticket had turned into a years-long ordeal, with multiple suspensions, thousands of dollars in

fines, incarceration, and a criminal record, all because she lacked disposable income.

This is the criminalization of poverty. Government entities make and enforce policies that

"trap people in the criminal legal system for engaging in activities to survive" (Vera Institute of

Justice, 2022, para. 2). Whether they are being arrested for sleeping in public, being stigmatized

applying for benefits, or sitting in jail because they could not afford bail or a fine, America has

made it a crime to be poor (Ehrenreich, 2011).

That woman in Maine was me. The research assistant position at Golden Door Advocacy

was a perfect fit because their work to decriminalize poverty is a cause that means something to

me personally. According to the United States Census Bureau’s official poverty measure in
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2022, 37.9 million Americans would agree (Shrider & Creamer, 2023). What was originally a so-

cial problem is now a legal problem. Millions of people across the country are economically in-

secure and being forced to make choices between food, housing, medical care, and utilities.

There are multiple factors that combine to form and maintain the culture of poverty. To

truly effect change, we must be cognizant of these factors and identify their roots. One explana-

tion of the American poverty cycle lies in conflict theory. Developed in the 1960s by Karl Marx

and Friedrich Engels, conflict theory states that laws exist to "maintain the interests of specific

groups who hold political power" (Zembroski, 2011, p. 249). This theory says that it is the strug-

gle over resources, especially power, which creates class distinctions, leading to a divide be-

tween the powerful and the powerless. The ruling class therefore has the means to exploit the

working by criminalizing the actions they have been forced to adopt (Nickerson, 2023). This is

then enforced by social institutions, such as the police, courts and prisons, and the welfare sys-

tem. The resulting criminal record follows the person through their search for housing, employ-

ment, education, and other opportunities that represent upward mobility.

And what better social institution than America’s oldest and most peculiar to perpetuate

this cycle? In 1830, South Carolina senator John C. Calhoun referred to slavery as the “peculiar

domestick institution” (Encyclopedia.com, n.d.). The criminalization of poverty represents a

modern day slavery descended from the original institution where, as authors Jeffrey Reiman and

Paul Leighton (2020) say, “the rich get richer and the poor get jail.”

Evidence

Through analysis of stereotypes, social changes, and historical and modern views of

poverty, Golden Door Advocacy focuses on four major areas: homelessness, welfare reform,

court fees and fines, and mass incarceration. From debtors’ prisons in colonial days, to slavery
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driving the growth of the U.S. prison system, to the Ferguson, Missouri, police department’s rev-

enue-generating methods, to over 7,000 New Yorkers sitting in jail “because they are poor, not

because they are guilty” (Monea, 2022, p.4), the criminalization of poverty in America is not a

novel concept.

Position Statement

It is the belief of Golden Door Advocacy that the criminalization of poverty, or "state-

sponsored efforts at enforcement, surveillance, labeling, and punishment" (Pager et al., 2022, p.

531) has produced intrusive and unfair public policies that marginalize and penalize people for

being poor. This is unjust, unethical, and is directly descended from the economic inequality es-

tablished by structural racism. Golden Door Advocacy aims to change the criminalization of

poverty through legal advocacy, policy advising, research, and case management.

Analysis

Position

Nelson Mandela said that "a nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citi-

zens, but how it treats its lowest" (as cited in United Nations, n.d.). Class stratification based on

economic status effectively separates American citizens into these highest and lowest groups,

Karl Marx’s bourgeoisie and proletariat classes respectively (Nickerson, 2023). The evolution of

class stratification, emboldened by racism, throughout the history of the country has widened this

divide through stereotypes, policies, ordinances, and laws, which are continually enforced as the

economy continues to decline (Ehrenreich, 2011).

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty found in 2017 that over half of

the 187 cities they studied had bans on camping and sitting or sleeping in public, and more than

two-thirds enforced bans on loitering and begging (Herring et al., 2020). Between 2006 and 2016
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alone, nationwide bans on living in a vehicle rose by 143 percent (Herring et al., 2020). Welfare

recipients were at one time subjected to “midnight raids” (Gustafson, 2009, p. 649) to “catch

men sleeping in the homes of women receiving welfare” (p. 649). It was assumed that an unmar-

ried woman sleeping with a man was not morally suited to receive welfare benefits. The court

system has used fees and fines to trap people in cycles of nonpayment, creating criminal records

and extending their involvement with the criminal justice system for years longer than is neces-

sary. Sociologists have referred to these practices as “permanent punishment” (Pager et al., 2022,

p. 530) and “layaway freedom” (p. 530). Quantitative studies have found direct correlations be-

tween mass incarceration and homelessness since the emancipation of slavery forced the upper

class to find their free labor elsewhere (Wacquant, 2000). Decreasing funding for public housing

while increasing funds for corrections has made the prison system the “primary provider of af-

fordable housing” (Herring et al., 2020, p. 132).

Stereotypes

When confronted with statistics such as these, one might wonder how the country

became so economically divided. Part of the answer lies in stereotypes of the poor that have per-

sisted throughout history. Typical stereotypes of people experiencing poverty include images of

dirty, diseased street people, often dangerous and involved in crimes such as theft or prostitution

(Amster, 2003). Also implicit in stereotypes of poor people is their helplessness or victim status

(Kawash, 1998). Different studies have found these same stereotypes in the media as well, noth-

ing that the media shows "the underclass in behavioral terms as criminals, alcoholics, and drug

addicts" (Clawson & Trice, 2000, p. 54). A study of a Washington Post series on poverty found

representations of the poor as "lazy, sexually irresponsible, and criminally deviant" (Clawson &

Trice, 2000, p. 54).

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There are also stereotypes perpetuated by our long history of racism. A study conducted

on five magazines, Business Week, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, Time, and U.S. News

& World Report, analyzed portrayals of the American poor over a five-year span (Clawson &

Trice, 2000). The study found that in the media, African Americans were depicted as making up

49% of the poor, but according to census data, the real figure was 27%. In contrast, white people

were depicted as making up 33% of the poor, but the data showed the real figure was 45%

(Clawson & Trice, 2000). The study also found that when there were stories on unpopular issues,

such as welfare reform, pregnancy, public housing, and the welfare cycle of dependency, Black

people were overrepresented in the news stories (Clawson & Trice, 2000).

There is also the oft-cited "welfare queen" stereotype. Media and literature show the wel-

fare queen as someone who milks the system using taxpayer money, has children to get more

benefits, will not marry to keep those benefits, is lazy and uneducated, and refuses to get a job

and come off welfare (Gustafson, 2009). Guy Drake, in his 1970 song “Welfare Cadillac” sings

“I’ve been poor all my life, I guess all I really own is ten kids and a wife,” “I sure don’t pay no

rent, I get the check the first of every month from this here federal government, and “we get

peanut butter and cheese, and man, they give us flour by the sack, course them welfare checks,

they make the payments on this new Cadillac” (Drake, 1970). Lyrics like these promote the

stereotype of welfare recipients as ungrateful people who have no moral qualms about taking

taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

The original “welfare queen” stereotype came from the Chicago Tribune’s coverage of

Linda Taylor in 1974 (Kohler-Hausmann, 2007). The media thoroughly covered this case, which

stunned the nation. Linda Taylor was charged with welfare fraud after illegally receiving over

$200,000 in benefits by using aliases and identities in twelve different states. These benefits in-
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cluded welfare cash assistance, food stamps, and social security benefits (Kohler-Hausmann,

2007). During Taylor’s prosecution, the Chicago Tribune further vilified welfare recipients by

publishing the hotline number to report cheaters and the names of people being charged with

welfare fraud. Evidence that this worked is seen in the numbers; in 1977, this hotline received

10,047 calls, and over 30,000 between 1977 and 1980 (Kohler-Haussman, 2007).

It is worth noting that these stereotypes were rarely valid. Most people did not have a

clear understanding of what constituted welfare fraud and mainly called in tips about “the more

traditional targets of state sanction, such as morally stigmatized unmarried mothers” (Kohler-

Haussman, 2007, p. 339). Only 3,400 welfare cases were affected after investigation, meaning

the actual rate of fraud as reported by the hotline was about 10%. One anonymous letter sent to a

state senator reported that their neighbors had many children, and both worked and received wel-

fare benefits. Whoever wrote the letter stated that their neighbors spent money on clothes, pets,

and toys, indicating that they took offense to the family buying and possessing more than neces-

sities. When officials investigated the situation, they found that the family in question had not re-

ceived public assistance for over a year (Kohler-Haussman, 2007).

Historical Interpretations

Throughout history, these stereotypes have informed public policy. Early colonial poor

laws were derived from English common laws, which indicated that communities needed to help

their members that were struggling (Katz, 2013). However, there was interest in separating the

people who genuinely needed help and those who were just lazy and entitled, creating Marx’s

bourgeoisie and proletariat classes. Josiah Quincy, the eventual president of Harvard University

and mayor of Boston, wrote in 1821 of the two classes of poor people. He labeled one class "the

impotent poor," (Katz, 2013, p. 5) referring to infants, the elderly, and the sick and disabled who
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could not work. The second class was what Quincy called the "able poor," (Katz, 2013, p. 5) or

those who could work, but had varying degrees of capability and could only do certain jobs. No

one had any issue helping the impotent poor, but they thought it wasteful and unnecessary to

spend money on people who had the ability to make their own. In 1834, the Reverend Charles

Burroughs, preaching in New Hampshire, also spoke of two distinct categories of poor people.

He distinguished between the poor and paupers, saying that poverty was an “unavoidable evil"

(Katz, 2013, p. 6) while pauperism was "the consequence of willful error, of shameful indolence,

of vicious habits” (Katz, 2013, p. 6). This notion that poverty is a result of moral failure has per-

sisted today.

British poor laws also allowed lenders to imprison people who owed them money. This

custom of debt imprisonment followed them to the colonies (Monea, 2022). As colonists

amassed more wealth and credit, debtors’ prisons became more popular. A citizens' group in

Philadelphia stated that 3,001 people were imprisoned for nonpayment of debt between 1826 and

1830. Because people in prison had no way to pay their debts, they often stayed incarcerated

while their families on the outside suffered from the loss of income (Monea, 2022). Parallels to

these policies can still be seen today. While physical buildings of debtors' prisons are no more,

the concept is still embedded in American society “in the form of pre-trial confinement, incarcer-

ation for court fees and fines, and excluding various forms of debt-such as alimony, divorce,

child support, and taxes-from constitutional protection" (Monea, 2022, p. 4). This shows how

historical principles and attitudes toward the poor have shaped modern-day policies. From the

distinction between poverty and pauperism, to debt imprisonment, to welfare monitoring, this

country has devised numerous ways to criminalize poverty (Gustafson, 2009). The parallels to

slavery are clear; laws criminalizing poverty are reminiscent of antebellum Jim Crow laws, en-
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suring the dependence of the lower class "in a relation of suffusive submission backed by legal

coercion and terroristic violence" (Wacquant, 2000, p. 380). Turning stereotypes into public pol-

icy endorses the class distinction that colors even modern interpretations of the issue.

Modern Interpretations

In more modern times, economic, political, and social systems continue to place undue

burdens on marginalized communities. Many modern policing policies and procedures are

directly derived from Southern-style slave patrols, including criminalizing petty offenses (Clark

et al., 2024). This justifies the over-policing and over-incarcerating of poor people, the majority

of which are black (Kohler-Hausmann, 2007). Jails have consequently become overcrowded

homeless shelters. From 1980 to 1990, spending for affordable housing decreased from $27

billion to $10 billion, while spending for corrections increased from $7 billion to $26.1 billion

(Herring et al., 2020). Incarceration only leads to higher rates of homelessness. People with

criminal records are routinely excluded from housing, whether private or subsidized, and from

gainful employment. They are also more likely to commit crimes out of desperation or

immediate need, circling back to over-policing of neighborhoods where homelessness is

concentrated (Herring et al., 2020). As a result, police contact is heightened over enforcement of

restrictions on “standing, sitting, and resting in public spaces” (Herring et al., 2020, p. 133)

during the day, and restrictions on “sleeping, camping, and lodging, including in vehicles;

begging and panhandling; and food sharing” (p. 133).

Twentieth century welfare reforms also extended the reach of the criminal justice systems

into the lives of poor people. The 1935 Social Security Act implemented ADC, or Aid to

Dependent Children (Kohler-Hausmann, 2007). Along with this program, however, came

monitoring, tightened eligibility requirements, and rules to publicly shame welfare recipients,
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such as requiring them to pick up their checks at police stations or banks rather than mailing

them to individual homes (Kohler-Hausmann, 2007). Another invasive policy took place as late

as the 1960s. Welfare offices conducted midnight raids on ADC recipients to see if the

unmarried women receiving benefits had men in the house; if so, welfare was revoked and the

men were considered “household breadwinners who had hidden their income support from the

aid office” (Gustafson, 2009, p. 649). The Supreme Court decision in King v. Smith (1968) lifted

this designation from the men, but that only served to shift all stigma and blame to women.

Americans continued to see welfare recipients as lazy and entitled, and officials, wanting to

appear tough on the issue, increased prosecutions for fraud. Investigations of overpayment were

shifted from social service agencies to district attorneys (Gustafson, 2009). In 1996, the Personal

Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ended the ADC program and cash aid.

Replacing ADC benefits were state block grant programs called Temporary Assistance for

Needy Families (TANF). The administration of TANF programs was left up to the states, as

opposed to the federally administered ADC program (Desmond, 2023). This means states can

decide how they use the money, and not every state has used it for poor people. For example,

Arizona has used TANF money to fund abstinence-only sex education, Pennsylvania has used it

for anti-abortion pregnancy centers, and Maine has used it to fund a Christian summer camp. In

2020, for every dollar allotted to TANF, “poor families directly received just 22 cents”

(Desmond, 2023, p. 4).

Ironically, money is withheld in this way from people who need it the most, but in other

places they become the ones exploited the most. Imposition of court fees and fines has trapped

low-income people in cycles they are unable to escape. During Ronald Reagan’s administration,

governments at every level were looking for ways to implement budget cuts and increase
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revenue (Edelman, 2019). Part of the solution was to impose fines and fees for every part of a

person’s involvement with the criminal justice system, with driver’s license suspensions being a

particularly lucrative option. There are states that suspend driver's licenses for unpaid student

loans, public drunkenness (even if a car is nowhere in sight), bad checks, graffiti, and littering.

This works because it is almost certain a person will be caught driving after suspension, since

they need to be able to get to work, get their kids to school, and do groceries and other errands.

In California, the majority of the $11 billion in outstanding court debt is due to license

suspensions (Edelman, 2019).

These policies disproportionately affect low-income people. A Georgia man, Abel

Edwards, was arrested for burning leaves without a permit. Edwards has a "significant

intellectual disability and cannot read or write" (Edelman, 2019, p. 214). After conviction, he

was given a $500 fine and was also ordered to pay $528 for probation. When he could not pay

the $500 fine, he was put on probation for a year, and the probation company added an instant

payment of $250. Edwards then went to jail until a friend could scrape together the money. Not

insignificantly, Edwards is also black (Edelman, 2019).

Another case brought the exploitation of low-income people to the forefront when the

Obama administration conducted a report on the Ferguson, Missouri, police department after the

2014 killing of Michael Brown (Edelman, 2019). In 2010, the population of Ferguson was 67%

Black, and between 2009-2013, 25% of the city was below the federal poverty level (Civil

Rights Division [CDR], 2015). According to the investigative report, Ferguson's city officials did

not see the police’s duty as enforcement of the law, but rather collection of revenue. In 2013, the

city budget for fines and fees was projected to be $2.11 million; the actual amount collected was

$2.46 million. In 2010, the city finance director emailed the police chief, saying that "unless
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ticket writing ramps up significantly before the end of the year, it will be hard to significantly

raise collections next year" (CDR, 2015, p. 10). The city regularly pressured its officers to write

as many citations as possible, leading to some officers writing up to fourteen citations for one

encounter. For example, for a single DUI stop, an officer might also write citations for

"speeding, failure to maintain a single lane, no insurance, and no seat belt, etc." (CDR, 2015, p.

11). In 2014, the finance director asked the police chief to pay five officers overtime to patrol the

highway seven days a week. The city made it clear that the reason for this was "to produce traffic

tickets, not provide easy OT" (CDR, 2015, p. 14). The city of Ferguson also charged a $50 fee

just for having a pending warrant cleared, among other arbitrary practices; none of these

practices considered a person's ability to pay. Ferguson's policies demonstrate how the upper

class exploits the poor for their own benefit.

The resulting debt from inevitable nonpayment of these fees and fines is one road to

criminalization, and, therefore, mass incarceration (Ehrenreich, 2011). In New York City in

2006, it was found that up to 23% of homeless people in shelters had been incarcerated within

the previous two years (Herring et al., 2020). In another national survey, 49% of homeless

people said they had been incarcerated during their lives, and 18% had spent time in a state

facility, compared to just 5% of the public. In San Francisco alone in 2013, between 10 and 24%

of the jail population was homeless at the time of arrest (Herring et al., 2020).

Other practices increase mass incarceration by providing the police with justification for

their actions. For example, "broken window" (Edelman, 2019, p. 216) policing, in which police

conduct mass arrests for small offenses, was introduced to keep order in the community. This

policy is also known as "rabble management" (Herring et al., 2020, p. 133). The only true

achievement was that it overcrowded the jails with poor people unable to make bail (Edelman,
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2019). There are up to 700,000 people in jail nationwide daily, 450,000 of which have never

been found guilty of anything; "they are simply poor people waiting for a trial" (Edelman, 2019,

p. 221). These poor people end up with stories like Kalief Browder, who was unable to make bail

and spent three years incarcerated at Rikers Island without ever being convicted for the alleged

petty robbery that landed him there. Browder’s mental health declined seriously due to his

violent and traumatic experiences in Rikers, and he committed suicide at the age of 22

(Gonnerman, 2015). Are we still so sure debtors’ prisons no longer exist in these United States?

Social Changes

Along with Golden Door Advocacy’s work, there are other organizations on the front

lines of the fight to decriminalize poverty. One example is the #IAskForHelpBecause campaign,

started by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. This campaign began after the

Norton v. Springfield (2015) ruling established that most panhandling laws are unconstitutional

(National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty [NLCHP], n.d.). According to NLCHP web-

site (n.d.), this campaign works with local advocacy groups “to repeal these unconstitutional or-

dinances and to promote more constructive approaches to addressing the hunger and homeless-

ness that creates the need for panhandling” (p. 1). Their belief is that people ask for help in the

forms of begging, panhandling, and solicitation, but when these acts are criminalized, it does

nothing but push them into the criminal justice system and cause even more problems. The

#IAskForHelpBecause campaign was launched in 2018 and at that time, it was estimated that

panhandling laws had increased up to 43% over the previous ten years (NLCHP, n.d).

Other examples of social change include legal reforms. A study conducted by Villanova

University found that heavy sentencing guidelines lead to mass incarceration, which increased

the poverty rate by approximately 20% (Tanner, 2021). Another study found that a family whose
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father was jailed was 40% more likely to be living in poverty. This has huge implications nation-

wide considering that 1.5 million children in 2016 had an incarcerated parent (Tanner, 2021).

The economic effects of incarceration can be lifelong; a PEW Research study found that inmates

released in 1986 were still in the bottom 20% of incomes as of 2006, a full 20 years after release

(Tanner, 2021). To combat these statistics, some states are redefining how they look at crimes of

poverty. In 2014, California's Proposition 47 turned a variety of felony offenses into misde-

meanors, including low-level theft and drug offenses, forgery, and receiving stolen property. The

law also allowed the resentencing of people serving felony time for these crimes, allowing sen-

tences to be reduced consistent with the new guidelines (Tanner, 2021).

Another area for reform involves the elimination of oppressive administrative court fees.

Research shows that these fees, along with over court-imposed crimes, contribute to the crimi-

nalization of poverty because they ensure that people become indebted to the criminal justice

system for extended periods of time (Pager et al., 2022). They may also “deepen economic disad-

vantage for defendants who are already poor, ”(Pager et al., 2022, p. 531) again perpetuating the

cycle of poverty.

This is not a new practice. Rather, it is the brainchild of post-war Southerners, who, in

1865, were scrambling for a solution upon the loss of their free labor (Bauer, 2018). The South-

ern economy was dependent on cotton production and desperately needed to maintain the income

after the devastation from the war. The Thirteenth Amendment freed the slaves, but it also pro-

vided white Southerners with a welcome loophole: slavery and involuntary servitude were ille-

gal, “except as a punishment for crime” (U.S. Const. amend. XIII). After spending the last few

centuries enslaved, newly freed African Americans were poor, uneducated, and transient. What

made more sense than to criminalize those characteristics, arrest anyone to whom they applied,
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and legally rebuild the free labor workforce through prisons? That is exactly what happened

(Bauer, 2018). Many arrests and incarcerations happened over “crimes” such as panhandling and

vagrancy, and this made the prison population disproportionately black.

Much like today, the fees and fines charged by the new laws kept people indebted to the

system and ensured they could be trapped for exorbitant amounts of time. In 1876, Mississippi

passed its infamous pig law; the theft of anything valued over $10, or cattle or pigs of any value,

was now considered grand larceny and carried a sentence of up to five years (Bauer, 2018).

Many times, these were crimes of necessity committed by the poorest citizens, and of course,

most were black. Abe McDowell and Kenneth Humphrey both were convicted of stealing items

worth under $5, and both paid dearly for it (Bauer, 2018). McDowell remained in jail for four

years; Humphrey for eight months (The Guardian, 2021). The only difference between these sto-

ries is that McDowell was convicted in 1877; Humphrey in 2017 (Bauer, 2018).

However, there is evidence of progress in this area. California is slowly eliminating these

fees, which are responsible for up to $16 billion in debt for Californians (Tanner, 2021). Other

states are also making progress towards eliminating fees, recognizing that they are most often

imposed upon people with the least ability to pay. More than 15 states have reduced their usage

of court fees since 2021 (Boardman, 2023). In 2023, New Mexico eliminated legal criminal fees

for the whole state. Arizona, Illinois, and Montana eliminated court fees for juveniles. Indiana is

working to limit fees for low-income citizens. Continued reforms in these areas will likely suc-

ceed, especially considering that “imposing increasingly onerous fines and fees results in less

revenue, not more” (Boardman, 2023, para. 28).

Sociological Theory
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Karl Marx believed that the upper class marginalizes the lower in subtle ways through so-

cial institutions (Hagan & Shedd, 2005). For example, studies show that, both at the individual

and neighborhood levels, socioeconomic status is linked to satisfaction with police; "concen-

trated neighborhood disadvantage increases dissatisfaction with the police" (Hagan & Shedd,

2005, p. 261). Broken window policing and rabble management are examples of how over-polic-

ing can lead to mass incarceration, leaving low-income people vulnerable to an unavoidable cy-

cle. If unable to pay bail, they will be in jail until trial, which affects their jobs and ability to pay

rent. To get out of jail, they must plead guilty at trial and receive even more fines. If they are not

able to adhere to a payment plan, they will fall even further behind, which restarts the cycle. This

vulnerability encompasses every aspect of a person's life, limiting their access to resources such

as housing, education, job training, proper nutrition, social capital, and even their dignity (Mayer

& Fungfeld, 2005).

Unfortunately, this system affects juveniles as well as adults. A 2016 study by the Juve-

nile Law Center of Philadelphia found that many states charge for "probation, supervision, diver-

sion, drug tests when there is no history of drug abuse, cost of care (room and board), and on and

on" (Edelman, 2019, p. 219). When their families cannot pay, this debt transitions to adulthood

along with the juvenile, affecting future opportunities for employment, credit, housing, and fi-

nancial aid for college, among others (Edelman, 2019).

This leads to the intergenerational transmission of poverty (Najman et al., 2018). The

class stratification described in Marx's conflict theory is then continued because children from

poor homes have a higher risk of mental and physical health, high mortality rates, developmental

delay, and general life stress (Najman et al., 2018). Studies have shown that these deficiencies

persist into adulthood, leaving children and grandchildren vulnerable to the same hardship. There
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are few more things more unjust and unethical than allowing this country’s history of systemic

racism to shackle the next generation before it even has a chance.

Ethical Challenges

Because the roots of poverty lie in extreme injustice and inequality, no conversation con-

cerning justice can be concluded without an analysis of ethical considerations. According to a

publication by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Office of Research (2016), it is so-

ciety's social norms that gives us our ideas as to the root causes of poverty. Backing those social

norms are ethics, which "refer to the social arrangements and institutions in a just society taking

account of the interests of persons from an impartial standpoint" (Barrientos et al., 2016, p. 8).

Slavery is neither a just institution nor the product of a just society. Criminalizing the poor and

keeping them bound in cycles of involuntary servitude or wasting way in a modern-day debtors’

prison is not the behavior of a just society.

The UNICEF publication offers multiple ethical perspectives towards the alleviation of

poverty. One is the principle that "social arrangements and institutions should maximize happi-

ness in society" (Barrientos et al., 2016, p. 9). It is unethical to ruin Kalief Browder's life and

happiness by allowing him to sit unadjudicated in Rikers Island for three years because he could

not afford bail. Another ethical perspective states that society should operate with fairness, find-

ing a way to equally disseminate resources so groups are more equally aligned (Barrientos et al.,

2016). It is unethical that, according to the Federal Reserve System (2024), at the end of 2023 the

top 0.1% of Americans held 13.6% of the country's wealth, while the bottom 50% held 2.5%.

The statistics by race show another staggering but expected gap. At the end of 2023, white

Americans held 84.5% of the country's wealth, while Black Americans held 3.4% (Board of

Governors, 2024).
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Finally, the UNICEF publication also describes an ethical perspective based on recogni-

tion: society must address and remedy the fact that people remain in poverty because of "eco-

nomic and political institutions systematically denying their value and contribution" (Barrientos

et al., 2016, p. 9). Through slavery, poor laws, homeless laws, the criminalization of welfare, the

use of prisons as homeless shelters, and thousands of other humiliating and depersonalizing poli-

cies, the voices of the poor have historically been silenced in this country. Samira Kawash's 1998

research article “The Homeless Body” discusses how, even now, the services put in place for

homeless relief, such as soup kitchens or shelters, still exclude homeless people "from their gov-

ernance or operation" (p. 321). Contemporary research and writing about poverty and homeless-

ness is conducted by people who have not personally experienced these issues. This distinction,

says Kawash (1998), is one of the reasons that the gap between rich and poor continues to widen;

the us vs. them dichotomy is reinforced. Homeless people do have ways to contribute; for exam-

ple, "self-organizing for political advocacy, participation in public discourse through electronic

networks or street newspapers, and the making and selling of goods" (Kawash, 1998, p. 321).

For example, The Homeless Voice (n.d.). is a street newspaper in Florida "born from the knowl-

edge that freedom of press was a way to raise awareness" (para. 1). The bottom line is that

poverty is a human rights issue. The ethics of a just society, as America is purported to be, dic-

tate that we create, support, and maintain an "economic system amenable to the fulfillment of ba-

sic rights to subsistence, security, and freedom" (Marks, 2017, p. 11).

Key Takeaways

Homelessness is a public health crisis. It is also a "social determinant of health" (United

States Interagency Council on Homelessness [USICH], n.d.). This means that consistent lack of

permanent, safe housing reduces a person's health and life expectancy. A homeless person, on
 19

average, will die approximately 30 years earlier than most Americans (USICH, n.d.). Many are

dying alone in the streets at a rate that jumped 77% between 2016 and 2020 (McCormick, 2022).

Randy Ferris, 65, died when a car rammed into his sidewalk camp in California. Justine

Belovoskey, 60, froze to death in a tent during a "Texas cold snap" (McCormick, 2022, para. 4).

Anthony Denico Williams, 20, homeless due to losing his mother to cancer at 16, died alone af-

ter he was stabbed to death on the street in Washington, D.C. (McCormick, 2022).

While the lack of affordable housing contributes to these tragedies, it also true that uneth-

ical practices by landlords play a part. In Birmingham, Alabama, around the end of 2021, 19% of

rental units were unoccupied, but rent increased by 14% (Desmond, 2023). Many poor people

are unable to enjoy a variety of choice in where they live, and landlords take advantage of this

fact. Sociologist Matthew Desmond found that landlords in poor neighborhoods take in double

the profits of landlords in wealthier neighborhoods. Landlords know they can exploit poor people

with lack of choices, and so they do (Desmond, 2023). Many poor people cannot get housing

loans or wait years for public housing. In San Diego, the average wait time for public housing is

eighteen years, and for rental assistance in private housing, the wait time was eight years (Kof-

sky & Rosenfeld, 2023). Across the country, wait times ranged from two to ten years (Kofsky &

Rosenfeld, 2023).

The intention of welfare is to improve the economic security of its recipients, especially

children, but the word itself has now become synonymous with criminality, fraud, and the stereo-

typical "welfare queen" (Gustafson, 2009). By stereotyping people as such, especially Black

women, society is given someone to blame. When the legal system penalizes the crimes of the

poor, such as “cheating” on welfare by working because the welfare is not enough, it inevitably

gives a pass to the crimes of the rich, who do not need to resort to these survival measures
 20

(Reiman & Leighton, 2020). The result is "the image that crime is almost exclusively the work of

the poor, an image that serves the interests of the powerful" (Reiman & Leighton, 2020, p. 8).

Professor Charles Reich wrote in 1963 that the entire purpose of welfare is to protect people's

homes, privacy, and integrity, and it is undermined if it is "enforced by methods that violate the

sanctity of the home and degrade and humiliate recipients" (p. 1360). Many welfare programs

accomplish this by using "stigmatization, surveillance, and regulation" (Gustafson, 2009, p. 647)

to keep a tight leash on recipients, in essence assuming that they are lazy, irresponsible children

who need to be minded.

The assumption that the poor are just lazy has also led states to implement work require-

ments that participants must follow if they expect to continue receiving assistance. There are

people who, disabled or otherwise physically unable to work, cannot meet these requirements

(Harrington, 2018). Studies have shown that reduction or elimination of welfare benefits leads to

a shorter life expectancy (Muennig et al., 2015). Or, if you are twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver,

life ends altogether.

In 2007, Deamonte suffered an abscessed tooth that caused pain and seizures (Otto,

2007). His mother, not realizing how severe the problem was and focusing on his brother who

had six rotted teeth, made dentist appointments for the boys. However, she canceled those ap-

pointments when she found out that the children no longer had Medicaid. She now believes their

renewal paperwork had been sent to the homeless shelter where they previously lived; she never

got it and was unaware the coverage was canceled. After two operations and six weeks at a chil-

dren's hospital, Deamonte died from two brain infections related to the abscessed tooth, menin-

goencephalitis and subdural empyema. A child lost his life because his mother was unable to re-

new his Medicaid, pay $80 for a tooth extraction, or qualify for a job that provided dental insur-
 21

ance (Otto, 2007). Only four months before Deamonte's death, the Maryland county in which he

lived was featured in Ebony magazine, with the headline "America's Wealthiest Black County"

(as cited in Otto, 2017). An official noted that this county was the epitome of the American

dream. In reality, "Prince George's County was a place of inequalities, nowhere more evident

than in the mouths of the poor" (Otto, 2017, para. 15).

Inequality extends to the imposition of court fees and fines upon the people with the least

ability to pay. This practice directly leads to involvement in the criminal justice system for

longer than would be necessary otherwise, and often results in incarceration (Pager et al., 2022).

Mass incarceration, in turn, "undermines the family and other community institutions, weakens

the stigma of incarceration and thus the deterrent value of imprisonment" (Reiman & Leighton,

2020, p. 37).

It is the amalgamation of all these factors, coupled with intergenerational trauma, which

serves to marginalize and criminalize the poor, who are most often the victims of crime and cir-

cumstance rather than the perpetrators. In 1903, the Statue of Liberty told the world that America

welcomes all who are “yearning to breathe free” (Lazarus, 1883). In 2020 a poor Black man,

George Floyd, told the world, “I can’t breathe” as he died in the street, criminalized, convicted,

sentenced, and executed all at the same time, over an alleged counterfeit $20 bill (Baker et al.,

2020). Did those 117 years mean nothing?

Possible Solutions

The decriminalization of poverty, as daunting as it may seem, is little more than the rec-

onciliation of human rights with progressive policy choices. Human rights may be defined as the

means necessary to live with dignity, "including the right to an adequate standard of living, that

is, the right to be free from poverty" (Marks, 2017, p. 1). The decriminalization of poverty is a
 22

policy choice. It is one that must be supported by the entire society, not just a single advocacy

group or collection of legal professionals. Authors Jeffrey Reiman and Paul Leighton (2020) put

it succinctly: "poverty exists in a wealthy society like ours because we allow it to exist" (p. 96).

Going further, Reiman and Leighton (2020) stress that when we think of the effects of

poverty, we may think of people who simply have less. But poverty is more than inconvenience.

It is Deamonte Driver, who died from a toothache. It is Kalief Browder, who died from suicide

after spending years in jail unable to pay bail. It is Florencio Moran, who died after being beaten

unrecognizable while sleeping on a New York sidewalk (Sandoval et al., 2019). It is Cynthia

Nerger, who ran out of a Kroger crying after trying to pay with food stamps and being told "ex-

cuse me for working for a living and not relying on food stamps like you" (Bentley, 2014). It is

Chris Carver, who opted to waive his right to counsel on misdemeanor charges because jail was

preferable to being on the streets in winter (Criscione, 2022).

To fix poverty, we must face poverty. We must admit that it is classist, racist, and a viola-

tion of human rights to allow people to live this way. Every Fourth of July, America celebrates

its independence and reflects on the land we have created; a land that was meant to be the land of

the free and the home of the brave. But who is free when they are restricted in their choice of

housing, medical care, education, or job? And what is brave about perpetuating myths of the

dirty, lazy, diseased poor to keep them out of sight and out of mind?

According to sociologist Matthew Desmond (2023), there are multiple policies that need

to change. For example, he says we need to make sure that benefits for the poor get to them and

stay there, rather than being taken by exploitative landlords or legal systems. We should equalize

the labor markets, expand low-income housing options, and provide support for people to be-

come homeowners (Desmond, 2023). Many states are decriminalizing petty crimes and reducing
 23

or eliminating court fees and fines (Widra, 2024). Scythian, one of the wise men of ancient

Greece, is quoted as saying “laws are like spiders’ webs: they catch the weak and the small, but

the strong and the powerful break through them” (as cited in Reiman & Leighton, 2020). Re-

forms must be enacted at all levels to strengthen our laws so that no one breaks through; not the

strong and powerful in defiance, and not the weak and small in obsolescence.

Final Position

The criminalization of poverty is a multi-systemic operation rooted in structural racism

that aims to keep the disadvantaged class in involuntary servitude to the upper class. This is all at

the expense of human rights. It is unethical and unacceptable that the political and ideological

choices of this country have succeeded in ensuring that "socioeconomic human rights...are cur-

rently, and by far, the most frequently violated human rights" (Pogge, 2005, p. 718). No human

has the right to decide the worth of another and interfere with the quality and trajectory of their

life by criminalizing survival measures. Racism, classism, lack of education, lack of resources,

and lack of awareness and support all contribute to keeping people trapped in modern-day slav-

ery, controlled by a few to the detriment of many. Golden Door Advocacy works to decriminal-

ize poverty by addressing these underlying factors that drive the poverty cycle. Through collec-

tive efforts and policy changes, we believe that we can make a difference, because, as Katherine

Cavanaugh of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council says, "every person and every

life matters" (as cited in McCormick, 2022).

Conclusion

Conflict theory, the separation of Americans into bourgeoisie and proletariat classes,

where one’s worth and opportunities are measured (or not) by their bank accounts, has lifelong

implications for success and quality of life. Karl Marx believed that poverty results from the con-
 24

flict of two classes over resources and power (Nickerson, 2023). Pulitzer prize-winning sociolo-

gist Matthew Desmond (2023) explains the conflict, or the criminalization of poverty and ex-

ploitation of the poor, in this simple yet profound way: “Poverty isn’t simply the condition of not

having enough money. It’s the condition of not having enough choice and being taken advantage

of because of that” (p. 14).

In the United States, we have put men on the moon, mapped the human genome, found a

cure for polio, invented the internet, and apprehended criminals based on DNA, but we have yet

to care for our own. Samira Kawash (1998) says, “the homeless are forced into constant motion

not because they are going somewhere, but because they have nowhere to go” (p. 327). Golden

Door Advocacy is working to correct these injustices, so no one is without a safe place to go, and

to restore America’s identity as the land of opportunity. The Statue of Liberty’s words hold more

relevance now than ever before, welcoming every human just as they are:

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

(Lazarus, 1883).
 25

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