“The challenge when it comes to criminalization of poverty is that the overall politics of our country is largely hostile or indifferent to the poor and their struggles,” writes American University Washington College of Law Professor Ezra Rosser in his recent book review of “Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America” by Peter Benjamin Edelman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center.
According to Professor Rosser, the book effectively brings to the forefront numerous ways in which impoverished individuals are victimized in the country. He adds that while the book offers a sense of optimism in tackling the criminalization of poverty by presenting case histories of achievements across the country, the fight against the current administration’s hostile or indifferent policies towards the most vulnerable demands “everyone’s full participation.”