Can we break the pattern of the criminal lifestyle?

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), May, 1997 by Mark S. Fleisher

". . . Keeping violent inmates imprisoned will reduce the number of victims and lower the cost of street crime."

Crime control policies are failing, despite optimistic statistics to the contrary. Crime control refers to the use of imprisonment as punishment for unlawful acts committed and a deterrent to their commission, as well as rehabilitation programs that include, but aren't limited to, education, vocational training, and treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction. Policymakers who pander for votes by alleging that getting tough on criminals will curb street crime are wrong. These threats have little effect on behavior-hardened street criminals.

During my years of research among "hard-core" adolescent delinquents and persistent adult criminals who cycle between sidewalks and cellhouses, we hung out together on street corners and in alleys and bars, missions and flophouses, jail and prison cells, and places where drugs were sold. This research, funded by the U.S. Census Bureau and Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, revealed that these criminals do not want to find legal jobs and stop using alcohol and drugs. Moreover, they do not interpret their lifestyles as lawful citizens do.

Persistent criminals see an unlawful lifestyle as relatively carefree and morally acceptable. Living a lawful lifestyle, however, would force them to relinquish the freedom of social irresponsibility. These criminals have little interest in society's rules and have learned to use the criminal justice system to their advantage. To them, prisons are sanctuaries that deliver social, medical, and recreational services. A system of effective crime control measures can be developed, but to do that, policymakers must learn more about the lives of street criminals.

The lives of persistent criminals have a trajectory or path which has its inception in early life. I call this trajectory a "street lifecycle." It has four sequential stages, each one linked to and establishing the conditions for the next.

My subjects" childhood homes were angry places. They were born into families where parents were alcoholics, most smoked marijuana, and many used heroin or cocaine. Fathers were criminals, often drug dealers. Mothers (and sometimes grandmothers) were involved directly in criminal activities with their husbands, brothers, sons, and nephews. Sometimes, these women were passive observers, but they always were active consumers of the money and goods brought about by crime.

Parents usually did not get along well with each other, especially when they were drunk. Women were beaten by their mates' fists or slashed with a knife; men were cut by knives wielded by women. Fathers and mothers assaulted their sons and daughters. Children were whipped with belts, punched with fists, slapped with hands, and kicked. I have witnessed mothers striking their sons and daughters repeatedly with heavy leather straps, then looking at me and saying, "It's for their own good."

In these homes, no one read to their children; no one cautioned them about the dangers of alcohol and drugs; no one said school was important; no one encouraged youngsters to read; no one bought school supplies; no one encouraged kids to write stories; no one helped children with arithmetic; and no one cared.

In their teenage years, these youngsters abandoned home life for street life. At first, they stayed away for a few days or a week, but as they adjusted and became part of the street's action, stints away from home grew longer and longer, until these youths never returned. They wandered city neighborhoods and banded together into loosely knit social groups (gangs), which afforded them some modicum of safety and protection, but at the same time exposed youngsters to drugs and violence and cut them off from social relationships to children and adults who might have helped them. By junior high school, nearly all were chronic truants and drug addicts, indulging freely in alcohol, marijuana, crack cocaine, heroin, or a combination of these drugs. They apprenticed at burglary, car theft, drug selling, pimping, and armed robbery--occupations that soon landed them in juvenile detention and then, as adults, in prison.

For adolescent and young adult criminals, a stint in prison often proved an acceptable alternative, offering them goods and services unavailable on the street. Prison is stable and provides plenty of food, a clean bed, recreation, and access to medical and dental services. State and Federal spending on inmate medical care exceeds $3,000 per inmate annually. Research shows that most inmates leave prison healthier than when they entered. Social life in prison is good, too. Some inmates continue criminal activity, such as drug dealing, while others just "lay up" and enjoy the safety and pleasures of not hustling for money and food every day.

Eventually, the easy life inside ends. Nearly all prison inmates are released and go back to home neighborhoods. As criminals age, they return to find that social ties have been broken from years in prison. Going home gets harder. Some former street companions still are behind bars, others were killed on the street, and some have died from drug overdoses, developed AIDS, or become ill from chronic alcoholism and/or hepatitis. They must compete against younger, more active criminals for the street's limited bounty. The harshness of street life never ends. Many aging hustlers prefer to return to the secure world of prison; others panhandle and commit petty crimes to support chronic alcohol and drug habits. These men and women sleep on cardboard boxes on concrete sidewalks, in empty cars and abandoned buildings, and under bushes in city parks.