Funneled into a Life of Crime

Growing up in the “projects” in California, Daniel was sucked into a life of crime from a very young age. Now a formerly incarcerated 58-year-old man, he recounted his introduction to crime at the age of six. He recalled that an older man would lift him so he could enter the windows of houses and open the front doors from the inside. Daniel would “sit down, watch TV, and eat the cereal while [the older man] was taking everything in the house.” When they would get caught by the police, the older man would run, leaving 6-year-old Daniel to “take the heat.” At this age, one cannot be expected to distinguish between right and wrong.

Daniel’s situation as a child stacked all of the odds against him. Although Daniel benefited from the support of a loving mother, he repeatedly discussed how the chronic absence of his father left an indelible impact on the path of his life. He reflected on how he might have been led to make good decisions for himself and others if he had had a father present as well: “If I would have had a father- and he said come on over here I would have gone over there. If he said don’t go over there, I would not have gone over there.” He also estimates that out of the people he knew in childhood, 75% are dead, in jail, or addicted to drugs and alcohol. Daniel witnessed parenting practices that led his peers to engage in crime; for instance, he witnessed a mother tie her son up like a dog to prevent him from running away with law-breaking friends. Daniel’s upbringing, characterized by a lack of stability inside and outside the household, in the company of other struggling youths, fed into his criminal activity.

Collectively, Daniel has spent over 30 years of his life in prison, and he did not make it out unscathed. Although he has a wife and children now, Daniel still feels very disconnected from society. He recalls trying to make conversation with people after being released and finding nothing in common with them. He was often judged for his criminal history and “little by little [he] found [himself] backing away.” He says that, to this day, he still does not have much in common with people. “I back away, I’m not too social still. I don’t have any friends. I don’t go out or anything.” He says that besides spending time with his wife and children “there is just no social life for me. I am alone still.” Daniel began to cry when recalling his friends from childhood with whom he lost touch after prison. He remembers his pre-incarceration life as his “normal life” and looks back on it longingly. His experiences demonstrate how incarceration does little to rehabilitate. If anything, it damages those who are incarcerated, making their life afterwards even more challenging than before.

This lack of support was present in all of Daniel’s interactions with the criminal justice system. Instead of intervening and providing a six year-old boy with help when they found him alone at the scenes of robberies, police waited until Daniel was old enough to arrest. We do not need excess or proactive policing; what we need is proactive intervention and programming. Countries such as the Netherlands have early intervention programs where children who commit crimes are required to complete training and education programs and are referred to a child protection board. Programs such as these must be implemented in the United States to help children in dangerous situations resist the harmful pressures of their communities. However, these situations did not arise from thin air. Many single parent families are a result of excess policing in low income communities. In most scenarios, proactive policing does not reduce crime at all; it cripples the economy of communities and removes parents from children, both of which have been proven to increase crime rates. Daniel’s case is a testament to the damaging effects of not having the active and guiding presence of all parents in a child’s life. To help alleviate the adverse effects of childhood risk factors like those experienced by Daniel, we should provide early interventions and programming to at-risk communities, thereby preventing future criminal behavior.