Growing up as an African-American, Hispanic or even a poor Caucasian in America is a challenge. The system is built to keep you in the lower class and it has its reasons. Billions of tax dollars are shelled out every year on food stamps, welfare, housing and many other Government assistant programs. Even if the beneficiaries of the above wanted to become productive citizens in their own neighborhoods and make it on their own, they would be hard pressed. The local education system as well as the local economy just simply can-not or will not support its people, so other measures need to be put in place! Some will find the fortitude to get into college and or leave their destitute neighborhoods to become productive citizens, employee's, business owners, etc. But that dream is few and in between. This environment almost always leads to the same impoverished cycle or for many, a life of crime. With no role models, local businesses or community programs around or Father figures in many of the homes; the streets usually find a way to take over. These circumstances are more common than we would like to admit. Many people will turn to the drug trade; some will become thieves, prostitutes, pimps, killers and drug attics. The harsh reality of your family starving with-out lights or water will make any sane person do what they need to in order to survive. Compounded with the stress of everyday poverty stricken life, hardcore criminals will emerge with a burning desire to succeed. Whether they take the legitimate route or illegal is the question. In the culmination of it all, I can assure you that no matter what the decision; someone will be profiting from these inequalities and in that majority will be the private prisons of America. A collective of legal Corporations who soul survival is to put warm bodies in cold cells to meet a Government contracted quota. Because of this need, Government has no incentive to help these low income communities but to watch them falter instead; it's actually cheaper for them to pay Private Prisons than to invest in these communities. Giving way to an abundant prison population that serves as the modern day slave trade.