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ScootyHoofdorp t1_iwcaryq wrote

Reply to comment by BoysenberryNo4959 in Making Baltimore look good on the Internet by perceptron-addict

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."

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pk10534 t1_iwcfi4n wrote

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

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ScootyHoofdorp t1_iwcp76v wrote

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.

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