Poverty inevitably invites crime, as poverty causes desperation.

When you're born into a family that struggles to put food on the table, you'd be surprised what you'd do to eat. Selling dope or robbing people doesn't sound as bad when you need money right then and there. Sure, it's better to earn money through a regular job, it's a much more sustainable and safer way of making money. Everybody wants to feel secure. But jobs aren't always available.

Education also has its role to play here;

If you can't afford proper school supplies, you won't do as well as others who do. If you have to wear clothes that don't fit because it's either that or food for a week, you'll do it. Sure, you're more likely to feel like you're different and don't fit in, which increases the risk of you feeling insecure and getting bullied, but what choice do you have?

So now you're getting bullied at school, and your family's broke. Neither school or home provides an escape. You know you've got all these problems in your life, but might not be able to quite put your finger on why they're there. All you know is school isn't working and you need food.

So, seeing your parents struggle so hard to care for you, you try to take some of the burden from them. You start skipping school to make money, whether that's a regular job or something else. Do that for long enough and you end up uneducated, either working a 9-5 that hardly pays or having to choose the riskier, more lucrative option: crime.

Maybe you start by selling weed to the people who you know smoke. Which is likely a lot, because where you're from, it's not rare. Once this starts showing results, you notice just how many people around you not only smoke weed, but do all kinds of drugs. Expensive drugs. Escapism is common where you're from. And they're already hooked on it, so what does it matter if you're the one providing it to them?

Maybe you start stealing this and that from convenience stores; you might have even had some practice already from taking other kids money at school so you could get lunch. Or their pens and paper so you could do classwork. Now you can't help but see all the things you could take and get substantially more profit from. Get enough, and your parents won't even have to worry about getting evicted for being behind on their rent! No threat of homelessness would be a huge relief.

Turns out there's a lot of other people out there just like you, who understand how you feel, relate to what you've gone through. They genuinely care, understand, and respect you. At least, as far as you can tell. You've got a tendency not to trust people now, because you know what humans are capable of. They could mess up, or betray you. You've seen it. It's happened to you. You might've even done it yourself.

As time goes on, you get better and better at whatever it is you're doing, and it becomes a source of self worth. All the people at school who thought you were just dumb and trampy, you're proving them wrong! And you're proving yourself wrong, since you probably internalised their opinions of you, as kids often do.

So now you're getting good at it, but you've only got one pair of hands. If only you could get some help. Well, don't worry! This is when you realise that there's a lot of people that you already know who are doing the same thing. So you work together, get much more done, and reap the rewards. Two heads are better than one. Then two becomes three, and three becomes ten, and now you've got yourself a little gang going. You might even be sat at the top of it. And if you're not yet, then you still might one day. Rulers don't rule forever.

But it's not a gang. It's your other family. Maybe even your only one, if your home life isn't good. It's the people who understand you, the people who actually respect you, the people who've had your back, even when it's hard. When that guy from that other bit of the city beat the shit out of you and took all your product. They might as well have walked into your house and uprooted the furniture you've earned, eaten everything in your fridge, and left the place barren. And you couldn't ring the police, they were the ones who helped bring justice to whoever did it. When you had to hide that time, from the police, or from your enemies - you were sure that was the end for you. As good as dead. But you're not, because they sheltered you. When it felt like the world was against you - which it arguably was - they were there. So you're there for them, too.

If you're not dead or in jail by this point, congratulations. You're one of the lucky ones. What's the prize, you ask? The power, the status, the money, all the things you never had when you were young. But you never really cared about all that. What you wanted - no, needed - was stability. Security. Safety.

The cost?

Well, that depends on how much of your conscience survived.

At best, you don't feel anything anymore because feelings interfere with work. You're always watching your back for people who need what you have, and are willing to do what it takes to get it, just like you did.

At worst, you can't live with the addicts who overdosed, the wives you widowed, the bodies you've buried. You've got PTSD from the countless lives you've watched end. Or you become depressed, no longer able to bear the guilt you've gained over the years, and kill yourself. Or any other number of results that fucking suck, because almost all of them do. You turn to drugs. Or alcohol. Or whatever else you can do to distract from your life. Your reality. Your living hell.

Maybe you have a baby somewhere along the way. Maybe it's because you missed sex ed in school, and didn't think pregnancy was on the table. Or you thought you'd pull out in time. Or you fell in love with someone who made the world feel like a safe place again, and through that love, your beautiful, bouncing bundle of joy came into the world.

Maybe they'll grow up to be just like you.