“Why this documentary left me more convinced than ever that gun control can’t cure violence.”
Condensing 36 years of three people’s lives into a two-hour documentary is an almost impossible task, but Jon Alpert has done a brilliant job with his new film “Life of Crime: 1984-2004,” which is available for streaming on HBOMax. The film, which is both a followup and an updated compendium of two previous “Life of Crime” projects that debuted in 1989 and 1998, respectively, follows the ups and downs (mostly downs) of three residents of Newark, New Jersey as they progress from dabbling in drugs and shoplifting in the 1980s to armed robbery and heroin addiction in the 1990s and beyond. It is absolutely brutal and gut wrenching to watch at times, but it is also one of the most eye-opening experiences I’ve had in terms of understanding the role that drugs play in violent crime.
In fact, throughout “Life of Crime: 1984-2004,” you never really see a firearm, even though two of the film’s subjects end up behind bars on armed robbery charges. Guns simply aren’t the focus of the lives of Rob and Freddy. No matter how hardened they become, they’re not a part of “gun culture.” They are immersed in drugs instead. Shoplifting? Robbery? Armed robbery? Those are just means to an end, and the end is sticking a needle in their veins. The same goes for Deliris, the third subject of the film and Rob’s one-time girlfriend, who at one point listens to her 7 or 8-year old daughter plaintively ask “If you love me so much why is your hand on the door” before she leaves to walk the streets to earn enough money for her fix, with her daughter left alone to care for her even younger brother.
According to a 2017 Bureau of Justice report, about 40% of inmates convicted of property crimes and about 14% of those behind bars for violent crimes say they are in prison because they broke the law to feed their addiction. We tend to (or at least I do) tend to think of “drug-related crime” as the shootouts between drug dealers battling over a corner or beefing over turf, but a considerable amount of violent crime can also be traced back to those demanding drugs, not just those supplying them. And taken together, the buyers and sellers of deadly drugs from meth to fentanyl are responsible for a huge amount of violence in the United States.
By Cam Edwards
