What's the point of the termite talk in Walter Dean Myers' novel Monster?

There are two possible points that can be made regarding the passage in Chapter Six of Walter Dean Myers' novel Monsterin which the story's protagonist, Steve Harmon, overhears court personnel discussing termites. Steve, as the reader already is well-aware, is on trial for his role in an armed robbery that ended in the murder of the owner of the store being robbed. What is uncertain is precisely what role Steve played in the tragic...

There are two possible points that can be made regarding the passage in Chapter Six of Walter Dean Myers' novel Monster in which the story's protagonist, Steve Harmon, overhears court personnel discussing termites. Steve, as the reader already is well-aware, is on trial for his role in an armed robbery that ended in the murder of the owner of the store being robbed. What is uncertain is precisely what role Steve played in the tragic chain of events that fateful night. All the reader knows is that Steve is on trial for felony murder, and that the criminal justice system appears to have already declared him guilty, evident in the prosecutor's labeling of him and the other defendants "monsters." 

In Chapter Six, Steve describes a dream he has had while asleep in his jail cell. He expresses the sincere hope that, during the dream, in which he is helpless in trying to get the court's attention while others converse freely, he didn't cry out in his sleep--a sure sign of weakness in the brutal and Darwinian environment in which this 16-year-old boy is imprisoned. The next day, in the courtroom, the legal proceedings are delayed while the court stenography deals with a technical problem involving cables. It is during this delay that Steve listens as the police officers and judge discuss termites, with "Officer 1" telling the others about his wife's fear that their house is infested with these wood-destroying insects. The police officers are unfamiliar with termites and one remarks "I heard they hide in the wood."

The significance in this passage is two-fold. It is a stark reminder to Steve that he is nothing to these people other than the latest condemned criminal to process through the judicial system. He is literally on trial for his life, and these individuals, so integral to his future, are cavalierly focused on mundane matters like insect infestation. Another way in which the discussion of termites is significant, however, is the fact that Myers chose this particular insect as the topic of discussion. Termites burrow into and destroy wood. In the process, they destroy wooden structures, like houses. Termites, then, are a metaphor for how Steve and others like him are viewed as inherently destructive of society. Steve is probably innocent of anything more than serving as a "look-out" during the robbery. In the court of public opinion, however, he is automatically guilty by virtue of his race and gender.