SLUMS A BREEDING GROUND FOR CRIME, VICTIMS

"Drug dealers don't do what they do as a public service. They do it because
of the money," said Childersburg Police Chief Chuck Brown. If the lure of
easy money is what tempts most people into crime, as Brown said, then that
lure looks much more tempting when you don't have any money.

Most area law enforcement officials say they believe there is a link
between poverty and crime. They believe that not having the opportunity to
legally support yourself comfortably - which in essence is what poverty is
- - is a strong incentive to turn to illegal means to make a living.

"A kid who doesn't have any money sees others being able to buy movie
tickets and other things. These kids start to look at ways to improve their
status, and they turn to crime," Brown said.

He said he feels crime for a poor person can satisfy not only physical
needs but also psychological ones.

"If you are not successful, you have low self-esteem. If people are in that
situation for a long period of time, they become desperate, they start to
try to improve their situation," he said. In their minds, crime can improve it.

Sgt. Steve Vickers, a detective with the Childersburg Police Department,
said it is the money combined with the lack of other opportunities to make
a decent living that lures people into crime.

Vickers, who used to work for the Sylacauga Police Department, said he knew
of youths living in poor areas who would get paid $50 to yell if they saw
police coming. These kids would be lookouts while others sold drugs.

"If they can make that money just for doing that for a few hours, how can
you tell them to work at McDonald's for minimum wage?" Vickers asked.

For some, crime becomes addictive.

Vickers said he knew a criminal who would make methamphetamine. The
criminal chemist would spend $170 on equipment and ingredients and 12 hours
later would have $3,500 worth of meth.

Vickers said the chemist challenged him to name one job where he could make
that amount of money in that time. The chemist told the detective that even
though he was addicted to drugs, he could probably give them up, but he
could never give up the money.

Vickers said this chemist was highly intelligent. If he had been given the
opportunities that affluence can provide, he might have become a research
scientist, possibly working for the Department of Forensic Sciences.

While Brown feels there is a link between crime and poverty in general, he
said he does not think there are any areas in Childersburg that have high
rates of both crime and extreme poverty.

He said there are areas that are poorer than others in Childersburg, but
there are no areas that have the volumes or concentration of people living
below the poverty line that are present in Birmingham or Montgomery. As a
result, there are not the problems with poverty and crime in Childersburg
that the bigger cities have.

Vickers said that during the short time he has worked for Childersburg, the
well-known low income area - the Sadie Lee Federal Housing Development -
has been "relatively quiet."

He said the only major crime he can remember happening there is a recent
double homicide.

Some statistics exist that show a link between poverty and crime in
Talladega County. A study by the Alabama Criminal Justice Information
Center in Montgomery shows that between 1994 and 1998, the years with
higher rates of unemployment had the higher crime rates. Unemployment
rates, in part, determine how many people live in poverty.

For example, the unemployment rate in 1994 was 7.7 percent, and a total of
2,910 criminal offenses occurred. In 1998, the unemployment rate had
dropped to 5.2 percent, and 1,759 offenses occurred.

The study, however, does not show the same relationship between
unemployment and crime in St. Clair County. In 1994, the year with higher
unemployment, 944 offenses occurred. In 1998, the year with more people
employed, 1,151 crimes occurred.

Sylacauga Police Chief Louis Zook said he believes that not only is there a
link between poverty and crime, but there is also a link between poverty
and victimization.

Many studies and reports exist to back up Zook's statement, according to
Dr. Don Bogie of the Center for Demographic Research at Auburn University
in Montgomery.

Bogie said the studies generally conclude that across the county the lower
socioeconomic classes "are more frequently victimized by crime, more likely
to be robbed, assaulted, etc., than the higher socioeconomic groupings."

With regard to criminals, Zook said a reason some poor people turn to crime
is that poverty can limit a person's educational opportunities, which in
turn limits employment.

And just like Brown and Vickers, he said that when there are fewer
legitimate economic opportunities, people turn to crime to support themselves.

Zook also said it is important to point out that not every criminal comes
from poverty. He said Sylacauga's criminals come from all sections of the
city, all social and economic classes and all backgrounds. Also, only a
small number of poor people turn to crime.

Studies show that while criminals come from all classes, they generally do
not commit the same crimes, Bogie said.

Studies show that the poor are disproportionately arrested for both
property crimes, such as burglary and auto theft, and violent crimes, such
as homicide and rape, Bogie said.

In contrast, the affluent are more likely to be arrested, convicted and
imprisoned for white-collar crimes such as tax evasion, embezzlement and
consumer fraud, he said.

Like other area law enforcement officers, Talladega Police Chief Alan
Watson said he notices a link between poverty and crime. And he said this
link is everywhere, not just Talladega County.

Watson feels the lack of opportunity seen in poor areas encourages crime.
The poor "feel they are not getting ahead, so they take a chance on crime,"
he said.

The issue for some poor people is not improvement, but a more basic issue,
like hunger, Watson said. For some, crime is a way to put food on the table.

Jimmy Kilgore, chief deputy for the Talladega County Sheriff's Department,
said the link between crime and poverty is much harder to see in the rural,
less populated parts of the county than in cities like Talladega, Sylacauga
and Childersburg.

Kilgore said that because there is not a concentration of poverty in the
county - for example, an affluent house can stand next to a less affluent
one - he can't really see, based on his own experience, if there is a
correlation between crime and poverty.

Brown, Zook and Watson all said their departments do not keep specific
statistics that relate crime to what economic class a perpetrator or victim
belongs to.

Watson, however, was able to provide statistics on the number of police
calls from two areas of Talladega during a certain period of time.

One of the areas comprises the three federal housing developments in the
city: Curry Court, Knoxville Homes and Westgate Housing Project.
Developments like these usually have a large percentage of residents who
make low incomes.

The other area is a section about 16 blocks long and eight blocks wide in
the city's southside. Streets in the section include Cherry, East, McMillan
and Heath and Central Avenue.

Watson said this area comprised a range of upper class and middle class
households. He said the incomes of a few households, however, were minimum
wage.

The federal housing developments had 1,333 police calls during a period
from Jan. 1, 2000, to Nov. 29, 2001, Watson said. The southside section had
452 calls during the same period.

Watson said the calls in these figures ranged from calls to the police
telling of a crime or requesting service to police arrests and traffic tickets.

He said he did not know the exact populations of each section, but he
believed the southside had more people.

Vickey Robinson, occupancy manager of the Talladega Housing Authority, said
the three developments currently have 1,042 residents. Robinson added that
the authority's occupancy has generally remained constant for the past few
years.

The study by the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center that compares
county rates of crime to rates of unemployment also compares both rates for
the entire state.

The study states that from 1994 to 1998, as the state unemployment rate
dropped 1.8 percent, so did the occurrence of crime by 5 percent.

Surprisingly, the study also states that while overall crime rates dropped
statewide and in Talladega County for those years, the percentage of drug
arrests increased by 51 percent and 206 percent, respectively. Drug arrests
increased by 48 percent for this period in St. Clair County.

In addition to this study, there have been other reports and national
studies that discuss the relationship between crime and poverty.

The studies generally do not mention who commits crimes, but who is
arrested for them. Bogie said the studies show that the lower economic
classes are more likely to be arrested for crimes, denied bail, found
guilty during trials, and sent to prisons than the higher classes. Dr. Mark
Lagory, a Birmingham sociologist, said there is a prevalent belief in
society that the reason there is more crime in poor areas is because the
poor are somehow intellectually and morally defective.

Lagory, who teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said this
is not the case. The main reason poverty and crime intertwine in certain
urban areas has to do with the environments that the poor find themselves
in and the reactions of those who live outside these environments.

He said the reason certain "gray areas of the economy" or black markets for
things like drugs and prostitution show up in poorer neighborhoods is not
because only poor people want them. In fact, more affluent people purchase
goods in these markets.

The reason the markets stay in poorer areas is because the middle and upper
classes will not allow these markets to exist anywhere else, Lagory said.

In the isolation that poor people face, a separate "subculture of
deviation" can form, Lagory said. The tendency for these subcultures to
concentrate together in certain areas makes it hard for people who are
surrounded by them to resist.

Regardless of what the actual relation between crime and poverty is, most
people believe areas where poor people live are areas where crime is rampant.

Participants in the Reality Work Center, however, believe this is not true.
The center, which is run by the Sylacauga Alliance for Family Enhancement,
teaches people with low incomes the skills needed to get long-term,
better-paying jobs.

Seven of the center's participants said they believe this idea - that poor
neighborhoods are crime-ridden - is an unfair stereotype.

"Most people believe the lower the income, the greater the crime rate,"
said participant Barbara Funderburg.

"People always say, 'We are going through a poor neighborhood, lock your
door,' like (the residents) are going to snatch stuff from your car,"
Funderburg said.

Participant Olivia Hines said what people think goes on in poor
neighborhoods and the reality of crime there are two different things.

Hines said people hear about specific incidents of crime happening in a
poor neighborhood and then start to think that all people living there are
either criminals or victims of crime.

Hines added that income not only plays a part in the stereotype, but so
does race. She said people often think of predominantly African American
neighborhoods as having high crime rates.

Contact Joe Schweizer Phone: 256-249-4311