This paper examines the role played by various elements of socioeconomic status - economic, social, and psychological - in causing criminal behaviour to materialise. Firstly, isolated neighbourhoods often face disconnection from employment in the legitimate economy and encounter income inequality. For the poor, especially, the widening of the gap between the rich and them demonstrates the contrast between earnings from criminal activities and legitimate avenues. These communities often become spatially isolated, causing social mechanisms like collective efficacy and informal social control to break down due to a lack of trust among neighbours. In fact, high-crime urban areas share more or less similar neighbourhood characteristics in Brazil (Nogueira de Melo et al. 2017), China (Liu et al. 2016), South Africa (Breetzke 2010), and the United States (Tuttle 5). Coupled with the economic and social features, various intervening processes like parental discipline, supervision, and attachment factors play an equal role in developing an individual’s psyche. The need to appear “tough” to acquire status and to follow the “code of the streets” can create a mindset among people that can manifest into law-breaking activities. Through this paper, I shed light on the complexity involved in entering crime, and how it can sometimes equally be by circumstance, and not choice.