The Criminalization Of Poverty By Barbara Ehrenreich Summary

In her essay Barbara Ehrenreich discusses the issue of the criminalization of poverty in the US. The author argues that as the poverty levels rise the criminalization of poverty intensifies. She focuses her attention on how federal, state, and municipal forces instead of coming up with the solutions for ever increasing levels of poverty in the US and implementing these solutions rather aggravate the existing situation through their actions and new legislations. Moreover, when concerned compassionate citizens take the initiative in their own hands and try to improve the quality of life of the less fortunate fellow citizens, the officials interfere, obstruct, and even punish them like in the case of arrest of the members of Food Not Bombs. I believe that Ehrenreich beautifully constructed her argument, supporting it with testimonies, examples of ridiculous laws and legislations, and statistic data; she created a very thought-provoking piece of writing.
I found it hard to …show more content…
On one hand, I find it shocking and even outrageous that the modern society, after decades of fighting for equality in every aspect of human life, and after so many wins and successes in that field, still loses in this fight. Furthermore, humanity greatly fails in the attempts to exterminate the inequality and creates even more barriers and constraints on the way to equality by criminalizing poverty. On the other hand, the stereotype of poverty going hand in hand with crime has a very long history; therefore, it is deeply embedded in human minds. I can easily imagine how this stereotype forms and influences the human behavior on individual level. However, I believe that the government is supposed to be immune to the stereotypes; its main function is to secure safe existence of the citizens based on the thoughtfully designed strategies. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the current policy of the US government on federal and state