Tierra's Case Summary

According to the United States census bureau, in 2013 45.3 million Americans were below the poverty line. Those who are under the age of 18 are the largest portions of those in poverty. Individuals who are in poverty are a huge cost to society because of increased health care, lost productivity, and crime. More so, children who grow up in poverty are more likely to do very poor in school and have low academic performance scores than their other peers, which can lead them to fewer opportunities in their near future. Children are more prone to negative adulthood outcome if he or she experience poverty doing childhood situations that are taking place during that time. Children who are living in poverty stricken neighborhoods are less likely …show more content…
Tierra lives with her mother who is a single parent of three. Tierra had to drop out of school because she had no one to watch her baby, her mother couldn't watch her baby because she is too busy making ends meet for her three children and now she has to feed yet another mouth. Tierra did not know any better and tried to apply for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) but her mother was already on there and it was in her address. Tierra gets approved for her snap benefits but her mother snap benefits gets cut off. With only one source of income and $100 a month from the government, Tierra had no choice but to rob a local gas station to try to come up with some easy money. Tierra thinking she could get away with, got caught and was sentenced to five years in jail which lead to having her mother putting her baby up for adoption because she could not take care of him if she's at work majority of the time. Which leads to my research question, Does children who grows up in poverty, are more likely to commit crimes during youth …show more content…
I will be surveying 500 students. 250 alternative high school students and 250 charter high school students, between the ages of 18-19, because it would be easier for them to participate in this design without parental control. I will be specifically doing this research in the Lawndale area, on the west side of Chicago. Personally me growing up in Chicago I have knowledge about this area, because this is where there are single-family households, low income, and lots of crime take place here. I have two purposes for using surveys. The first purpose is to get the public opinions (students) on dealing with poverty crime to help improve some of the difficult defects that exist within those main areas. Another reason why I chose surveys is so that I can reach out to different high schools, where I can get the younger population educated on, crime and how not to let it affect them. Also, there were three different surveys that I had to choose for my research proposal, which were questionnaires, mailed surveys, and telephone surveys. I decided to use questionnaires. I will be asking a series of questions related to both property crimes and serious violent crimes they had committed in the past year. First, students were asked 3 questions related to property crimes. “In the past year, how many times did you want to steal something for your local mall”? 0 = never, 1 = 1-2 times, 2 = 3-4 times, and 3 = 5 or