Was listening to a British podcast discussing crime and it brought to mind some thoughts.

In general, the left tends to think of crime as a consequence of poverty and lack of opportunity. There are higher crime rates in poorer neighborhoods and that’s because people there are being denied basic goods, and being denied the opportunities to better themselves. So, crime is the only available response they have to the circumstances inflicted on them and the denial of opportunities, most likely for racist motives.

I’d like to outline why I think that argument fails. My own belief is that there are criminals (those that commit crimes) scattered among the population. There are criminals among the rich- witness white collar crimes, like embezzling, etc. There are criminals among the middle class, and there are criminals among the poor. One could reason that among the poor, crime is more of a necessity, since they don’t have basic necessities or even opportunities. But that certainly can’t cover why people in the middle and upper classes commit crimes.  

Here’s what the Law Library says:

“Reasons for committing a crime include greed, anger, jealously, revenge, or pride. Some people decide to commit a crime and carefully plan everything in advance to increase gain and decrease risk. These people are making choices about their behavior; some even consider a life of crime better than a regular job—believing crime brings in greater rewards, admiration, and excitement—at least until they are caught. Others get an adrenaline rush when successfully carrying out a dangerous crime. Others commit crimes on impulse, out of rage or fear.

The desire for material gain (money or expensive belongings) leads to property crimes such as robberies, burglaries, white-collar crimes, and auto thefts. The desire for control, revenge, or power leads to violent crimes such as murders, assaults, and rapes. These violent crimes usually occur on impulse or the spur of the moment when emotions run high. Property crimes are usually planned in advance.”

https://law.jrank.org/pages/12004/Causes-Crime.html

Greed, anger, jealousy, revenge, and pride, exist in humans. These things are not restricted to a class. This explains why there are criminals in every class. The worst explanation is crime is because of poverty. Granting that can be A cause, but it certainly isn’t the only one.

One pushback against this might be that poor people, and particularly people of color, are disproportionately imprisoned for their crimes.

Well, in any neighborhood, it is the duty of governance to keep its citizens safe. This means removing criminals. In poor neighborhoods, those criminals are likely poor themselves.  

On the left, this may translate to not wanting to further condemn the poor criminal, since he is pushed in the direction of crime by his circumstances. Doing so would simply be further victimizing those who are already victims of society.

However, the poor criminal in poor areas is victimizing other poor people in his neighborhood too. The poor non-criminals live in the same circumstances as the poor criminal, without resorting to crimes. They are subjected to the same forces supposed to be driving the poor criminal to become a criminal. If the circumstances- poverty- are the driver, then those forces should drive everyone in the community to the same result- criminal activity. Yet poverty doesn’t result in every poor person becoming a criminal.

But returning to the non-criminal poor living in their communities, they are further impoverished by the activities of the poor criminal. So in the name of compassion, the just and right thing to do would be to remove the poor criminals from the neighborhoods so that the poor non-criminals are not victimized any more. Even if one considers this immoral in the sense of further victimizing the criminals who are themselves victims, it is still an even greater victimization to allow them to commit crimes against the others in their neighborhoods, AND it further limits opportunities to those that are non-criminal.

The first duty of governance is to ensure order and safety. Reducing crime ought to therefore be a top priority.  

If middle and upper-class neighborhoods are not policed, and the criminals there are allowed to freely commit crimes, then those should be the least safe neighborhoods. My guess is that criminal activity in upper-class neighborhoods would tend to be of the type that is less physically dangerous. In other words, probably more in terms of skirting the law in finances, or using unethical means to externalize costs, rather than robbery, theft, muggings, and rape. This would translate to people feeling safe walking the streets, but maybe not safe in their business dealings with those same people.

Whereas in lower-class neighborhoods, crime will tend to hover at a more physically threatening level.

But even accepting the leftists’ standard of wanting to show compassion to poor people, it isn’t compassionate to let criminals commit crimes against other poor people, simply because they themselves are poor. That only further penalizes the non-criminal poor, and if one accepts that poverty is a driver of crime, would spiral into more poor people being pushed into crime.

For those of the mindset that poverty leads to crime, therefore punishing poor criminals is just further victimizing those already victimized; your desire to not further victimize the criminal is leading has a direct consequence of dragging the poor non-criminals down even further.

Focus your compassion beyond the poor criminal to the much larger group of poor non-criminals, and use that compassion for the poor to ensure their safety by removing the criminals among them. This will improve the non-criminal poor’s access to opportunity by removing physical threats against them.