Barbara Ehrenreich's Is It Now A Crime Being Poor

Visualize yourself unemployed receiving a final note from a bank, stating that within a week all occupants of the house have to dislodge. In consequence, you will become homeless, a parasite to society. without any place to go and rest, you have to trespass a bridge or rest on a bench, now you are committing a crime and surely you will be imprisoned as criminal that you are product of your economic collapse. A majority of homeless individuals have been suffering such harsh reality due to their poverty. Barbara Ehrenreich, a political activist and author in her essay “Is it Now a Crime Being Poor?” discusses the problems of the US correctional system about the treatment of homeless people. She describes the inequitable process of how they are sent to jail for minor crimes, the situations of individuals that have been plummeting into debt leading them to cope prison …show more content…
In her essay, she reveals the penalties on being homelessness. She states, “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance”. In other words, an individual will face jail term if he or she sits, lies, trespass, or litters on any public space. It is evident that a fluent individual would not slumber under any bridge. However, a homeless person lacking of a shelter does not have any other choice but to sleep in a public space. Furthermore, such individual is committing trespass and is subjectable to a jail term. Ehrenreich sees those minor crimes sentences disrespectful to people who do not have anything to eat or anywhere to live in. As she says, “In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually been intensifying as the recession generates ever more poverty”. She considers that criminalization of poverty is comparable to a chain reaction which the government has not done anything to prevent