BoysenberryNo4959 t1_iwc5pgv wrote on November 14, 2022 at 3:39 PM

Thanks for sharing! Honestly, a lot of the negative press about Baltimore centers on the idea that most in the city are black, poor and therefore violent. Of course, that is not true and it doesn’t represent how many people live and love the city. The media does a lot of fearmongering about Baltimore and while the city does have a lot of crime, that’s the case with every major city.

sunglasses90 t1_iwc6p7r wrote on November 14, 2022 at 3:46 PM

Baltimore is statistically much worse as far as violent crime when compared to the majority of American cities. There’s a few that beat us I think only St. Louis and Chicago as far as homocide rates . But I also think the violence there is a lot more contained to certain areas since they are much larger than Baltimore.

ScootyHoofdorp t1_iwcaryq wrote on November 14, 2022 at 4:14 PM

It also doesn't help that the mayor literally said that poor people are more likely to be criminals.

EDIT: I misrepresented what the mayor said. Here's his exact quote: "Folks that are experiencing poverty are folks that are gonna commit crimes."

pk10534 t1_iwcfi4n wrote on November 14, 2022 at 4:46 PM

You don’t think there’s a link between poverty and crime…?

ScootyHoofdorp t1_iwcp76v wrote on November 14, 2022 at 5:50 PM

Well, first, see my edit. Also, I definitely think there's a link between poverty and crime. I don't, however, think that we should treat poor people as if they have no agency and that society has forced them to become criminals, like the mayor, perhaps unintentionally, implied. That's a disservice to the vast majority of poor people that don't resort to crime. There is heaps of evidence that crime rates can be affected by many factors other than poverty. It's negligent to sit idly by and refuse to pursue other avenues of reducing crime simply because poverty exists.