by Dana Gray
In Clarence Darrow’s essay, “Crime and Criminals,” he makes the case that all crime is rooted in economics and the inability of minorities to get ahead as the cause of incarceration. However, he unwittingly makes the better argument which contradicts his own economic thesis, “…but if you look at the question deeply enough and carefully enough you would see that there were circumstances that drove you to do exactly the thing which you did.” (Darrow) He diagnoses “circumstances” as the etiology of incarceration. That is a vague word, a generalization encompassing anything from economic disparity to insanity. Criminals are rarely the victims unless they are falsely imprisoned. Other than color, one must consider the underlying “what” caused the incarceration and for that you have to look at insight and cognitive behavior. Setting aside economics, criminal thinking is ingrained from those first thoughts, the messages learned that create the beliefs that shape a child’s behavior into adulthood. This is more realistic than to loosely throw out the term “economics” or “circumstances”in the context which makes the criminal the victim. This type of undercurrent takes away from minority empowerment and cheapens the BLM movement in which race and economics intertwine. Cultural diversity is just that, and there are diversity subsets within a culture set.