"Well, I’m a-scairt about it. Sometimes you do a crime, an’ you don’t even know it’s bad. Maybe they got crimes in California we don’t even know about. Maybe you gonna do somepin an’ it’s all right, an’ in California it ain’t all right."
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 13. Ma Joad is afraid that her son Tom may be caught for breaking parole in crossing the state line traveling to California. Tom’s "crime" in staying with his family pales alongside the "crimes" committed by the banks, business companies and others in the novel. Later we learn of the California growers who leave fruit and vegetables to rot in the ground, while people go hungry. "There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation," Steinbeck writes.