Introduction
Criminal activities among the youth and women are high in areas with low incomes like slums and poverty-stricken populations. A Rage in Harlem (1957), by Chester and ‘’The Corner’ by Simon and Burns focus on the criminal activities taking place in inner cities. A Rage in Harlem focuses on sexual and violence among the youth in the City of Harlem where majority of its population is black who live in congested dwellings, feeding on each other’s throats. This shows how poverty is prevalent in among the blacks living in Harlem while the whites are living in mansions on a hill overlooking the harsh conditions of the blacks. He says that they feed on one another like ‘’millions of hungry cannibal fish.’’ The blacks according to Himes are living in poor conditions where they cannot do anything to change as symbolized by the train that whistles past the black neighborhood. The blacks are helpless and cannot do anything even to stop the train that thunders around the city disturbing their peace, this shows how white capitalism controls the lives of the hopeless blacks dwelling in the suffocating enclosures of Harlem (Simon and Edward 20).
The people are left with no other choice other than to turn to criminal activities to support themselves. The main character and protagonist Jackson, tries to make off with a hoard of what he thinks may be gold concealed in a hearse. He works in a funeral parlor and the connection of this character to a death parlor shows how bad the situation is and the extent to which this people will go through to get a source of livelihood. The Corner by Simon and Burns revolves around the same theme with drug dealing activities in the streets of West Baltimore where people go to buy and sell drugs (Simon and Edward 20). The situation is because of poverty among the dwellers of West Baltimore. This is evident in the family of DeAndre who live in 8' x 10' room with his mother and brother and many other relatives who occupy the other rooms in the three-storey building. His mother sells drugs at the corner and is an addict just like the rest of his family members, aunts’ uncles, father and cousins. The corner is full of all kinds of drugs and the people there sell drugs during the day. Although the police do everything in their power to stop the flow of drugs as seen in the efforts of Brown when he comes and fills his wagon with drug barons, the streets become full before his wagon takes the first corner. This shows how engrossed these people are with the selling and buying of drugs.
Poverty is majorly the cause of criminal activities as seen in ‘A Rage in Harlem’ and ‘The Corner’. Jackson works hard and even draws out all his savings to give to as person called Hank introduced to him by his girlfriend Imabelle (Simon and Edward 25). Jackson in ‘A Rage in Harlem’ wants to get out of poverty in any way possible, the idea of getting rich with the ‘get-rich-quick scheme’ appeals him, and he gives out all his savings to the scheme. However, this was all a fraud and all his money plus girlfriend disappears into the thin air. He has to deal with the US Marshal who appears at the wrong time. To settle off the US Marshal he has to get money from stealing from his boss. This does not end here as we see in the book that his twin brother is also getting money from people by posing as a nun. This shows the extent to which poverty drives people to do the unthinkable to get money for survival. Even though he has lost all his money to the fraudsters, he is interested in getting back his girlfriend who he believes was kidnapped by Hank showing how naïve he is. Poverty as proven in this book changes the perception of people and crime (Raphael and Winter‐Ebmer 270).
Neighbors are not interested in whatever you do as long as it does not affect their own criminal activities. Their interests lie on the events that affect them and not on how to reduce criminal activities prevalent in the city. The way Himes describes the city of Harlem shows how serious the situation is especially when he writes about how Goldy's scream when associated with the whistle of the train shakes the entire city. He says that it shakes the blacks sleeping in the lice infested beds, the plaster used in ceilings, rats in walls, the fleas on the bodies of the blacks and clogged toilets that cause it to release its filth.
The Corner also shows how poverty drives people to engage in criminal activities to get money for their daily activities. Poverty forces DeAndre’s mother who had gone to a rehabilitation centre to go back to selling drugs because it is in the Corner that people who have hit rock bottom in life go to get money. Money in the Corner streets comes very fast and the young and old people roaming the streets hawking the different brands of heroin and cocaine are in dire need of the money though they spend it as fast as they get it. Lack of money forces young people to go into criminal activities, which are evident when three young men who had pistons and knives and tossed them into the alleys rob Gary, DeAndre’s father and his friends. The condition of the house where DeAndre and his mother, brother and father live shows how congested they are in the area. It is not a wonder that DeAndre starts visiting the streets instead of going to school. The deserted urine stinking houses where people stagger to go and smoke the drugs show the state of the dwellings in this town.
Drugs
Drug abuse among the youth and the women in many places has led to increase in criminal activities (Hammersley 5). People engaged in crime either sell drugs or use them. A Rage in Harlem portrays how drugs has forced Goldy, Jackson’s brother disguising himself as a Sister of Mercy, to sell tickets of the Heaven to get money to support his addiction to drugs. The presence of drug dens and the two conmen Hank and his sideman show the wide use of drugs in Harlem. The addiction of drugs forces Goldy to pretend to be a nun without a care in the world of how he is misusing the title of sisterhood in his desire to quench his addiction.
The use of drugs in ‘The Corner’ is widely spread and everyone in the city is abusing one drug or the other. The streets of West Baltimore are full of hawkers selling all brands of cocaine and heroin and they are not even afraid of going to the street in broad daylight to get a few dollars (Simon and Edward 37). DeAndre witnesses people falling around him every day from overdoses and bugs. He is not concerned about his future and only cares about getting fast money to spend in brand names. The book goes into details about the drug situation in the area with youths trying to draw meaning from the world that sees them as irrelevant. They want to prove to the rest of the world that they have a place where they belong and a place they know how to handle. The cheap cocaine found in the corner drew women into the drug business and this has left many children like DeAndre ‘parentless.’ The children are also drawn into the corner not only for the love of money, but due to the thrill associated with being in the streets playing gangster and ducking the police officers patrolling the streets. The city of Baltimore has created another rite of passage where a child has to sell drugs to pass to the next stage in life.
The children in particular find it as fun to stand at a corner with bang roll in his or her hand he tries to catch the attention of police officers. They do this to see how well they can dodge the officers if they start pursuing them. The ‘man-child’ is often seen in the street spraying bullets to other innocent by standers with the excuse that his or her feelings have been hurt in one-way or another. These youngsters are vulnerable to the effects of the rugs like hallucinations, violence spells, and they take it out on the people close by. The business of selling drugs often face violence as people negotiate prices or try to attract the attention of buyers. Many young people find a thrill in engaging in criminal activities after taking the drugs and they end up in jail if the police are lucky enough to catch them. Most of them start the drug business as a way of getting money to support their families and themselves, but little by little, they become drawn into full business of drugs and later on into criminal activities (Garland 3).
Lack of education
Education helps a person know the effects of drug abuse and gives him a chance to secure a good job. This reduces the chance of such a person to engage in criminal activities. However, the people portrayed in the two books, ‘A Rage in Harlem’ and ‘The Corner’ do not have sufficient education to deter them from criminal activities. In ‘The Corner’ for example, young people are not in school as expected in other parts of the world (Simon and Edward 50). Instead, they are roaming the streets hawking different brands of heroin and cocaine. DeAndre is end up in the corners of the streets and this does not surprise us because of the environment around him. The criminal activities around him forces him to think he has no future because he witnesses people dying every day from stray bullets, overdoses and other causes. He does not have a dream of the future and he thinks that the only way to survive is by going to the streets and operating the common business as everyone else. Kids are seen all over the corners in the city hawking drugs instead of going to school to get education. The parents are no different because they do not give a damn about the future of their children. They gave up hope a long time ago as we hear Gary saying that when he was young he had dreams, but now he is a drug addict though he never wished to be one. This shows that the people in this town are subjected to harsh conditions with no focus on the education of the young children. The children grow up knowing how to hold guns and dodge from police officers. Children who should be going to school like DeAndre are also in the streets selling drugs and spending the money as fast as he gets it. The dreams of a young boy never become a reality because the situation is so bad no one thinks about tomorrow, (Silberman, 99).
A Rage in Harlem’ is no different. The main character Jackson works for a funeral parlor something, which shows that he did not get sufficient education to pursue a course that would give him a chance to get a good job. Harlem overlooks university buildings, but those are not meant for the dwellers of Harlem, but to the whites living in the mansion in the hill. Lack of education among the dwellers of Harlem forces them to look for other means of survival and the only other way to survive is by going into criminal activities. There are many criminal joints in the town like casinos, gambling joints, brothels and alleys where criminal activities take place during the day or during the night because no one is concerned about another person’s business.
Unemployment
Lacks of secure jobs in both towns where the books are set show a great link between criminal activities and job security. Jackson is working in a parlor is really dissatisfied with the money he gets there. He becomes obsessed with the idea that there is gold in a hearse. The money he gets from the parlor is not sufficient to sustain his needs and he goes on to steal from his boos in an effort to make quick money from the get rich scheme. Most of the characters in this book are into criminal activities and they do not care as long as they get something at the end of the day. This is why Hank and his sideman con people like Jackson who want to make money fast. Goldy, on the other hand, is busy impersonating a nun and conning people in order to sustain himself (Simon and Edward 66).
The corner also shows how lack of formal employment drives people to engage in criminal activities to get money to feed their families. The three young men who rob Gary are looking for a way to sustain themselves even if it means threatening people with pistons and knives. The business taking place in the corners of the city show how these people are so engrossed in selling drugs and interrupting the peace in the city by engaging in violent activities. The reason for this is lack of better jobs to do to get money to send children to school and to feed them.
Neighborhoods and surroundings
The environment where one is brought up plays a vital role in shaping the personality of such a person. The settings of these two books portray an environment filled with criminal activates and drug abuse. This influences the minds of the young people on how best they should live. The only role models they see around are parents and relatives who are drug addicts; they witness killings in the streets, people dodging the police and prostitution-taking place in their homes. This is why the young people in congested areas especially slums and ghettoes end up becoming criminals. They only things they witness in their childhood are criminal activities and they grow up believing that being in a gang is an achievement. They see heroes in criminals and they aspire to be like them. This is why we are not shocked as we see DeAndre in the streets selling heroin. This is because the people he is with daily are addicts and when he goes out into the streets people made fast money from selling drugs, (Fajnzylber, Lederman and Loayza 349).
In ‘A Rage’, we see people engaging in criminal activities and as Himes says young unwed girls’ foetus are shaken by the screams of Goldy. The situation is not different from that in ‘The Corner’ because the people living in Harlem are very poor and engage in criminal activities. The environment this people inhabit forces them to engage in criminal activities to guarantee their survival. The young children will grow adapting the same violent behavior increasing the rates of criminal activities in the enclosed town (Albanese 417).
Conclusion
The way the government handles situations in the two towns especially the legislations on drug abuse does little or nothing at all to remedy the situation. The people living in these harsh conditions know how it feels to sleep hungry and that forces them to engage in criminal activities. This is why most legislation on criminal activities and drug abuse fail. They do not focus on the root cause of the problems. The people in these two towns do everything to survive from one day to the other while the government ignores their woes. This is evident as Simon and Burns say that the people in the corner are trying to prove to the world that they are not irrelevant, as they are believed to be. They want a chance to do things the right way, but do not get a chance to do change their ways. The policies should focus more on creating alternative means of survival for people like DeAndre who are victims of circumstances instead of focusing on how to arrest drugs barons. The two books bring out the major issues faced by the less fortunate living in the dark streets and corners in different parts of the country. These people resort to criminal activities because of the circumstances facing them. The two books bring out the theme of crime and how these people get involves. Economic difficulties come out as the most common cause of criminal activities as they try to get money to get through their daily expenditure. Poverty, drug abuse, lack of education and employment also play a huge role in the rise of criminal activities. The fight against crime should start with dealing with these problems and finding alternatives to the economic activities engaged by the people in congested areas.
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