There have been studies that show a causal relationship between poverty and crime such as petty theft and robbery.

It seems intuitive to me. Sure, some people will always just be opportunists and steal because they can, but I can see how there could be a much larger subset of people to whom stealing would become an option when the other option is skipping meals or being homeless.

I mean to add to your comment, the biggest thievery happens at the very top. A lot of countries' populations would be a lot more well-off if it wasn't for the massive tax evasion schemes employed by companies. Hundreds of billions of tax income - which can be spent on socialist policies like health care, housing, benefits, etc - is carted off to tax havens and just sits there. Bernie Madoff scammed people for nearly $65 billion. The US government pumped trillions into the military, which in the end did not have much return on investment. They spent all that money while their own country's people work three underpaid jobs and go bankrupt over student debt and medical bills.

I mean I wouldn't even mind so much if the rich just kept buying ridiculous fancy cars, because at least that way the money moves around.

> The US government pumped trillions into the military, which in the end did not have much return on investment

Arguably it is one of the more successful socialist policies - certain parts of US would be economically devastated if not for the military related production.

Defense pork type projects aside military also provides trade school to a heck of a lot of the people in it. If you're not an infantry or security type MOS you are almost always leaving with training in a skill that you can roll into a better than entry level job in that field. The people who's specialized job training is almost exclusively combat related can roll that into a career in law enforcement but it is harder than (for example) a mechanic switching from tanks to combines. You could argue that the military is not an efficient way to equip these people with these skills and that's true but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people who enter as 18yos with only general labor type jobs on their resume leave as 20-somethings with a marketable skill.

You'll still need police, prisons, etc. But you could reduce their size as less people will require the attention of those state organs. People usually know that what they are doing is wrong, and would rather avoid doing it. Of course some are reckless, but that's what you still have police for.

How many middle class people do you see stealing copper wire? Not many, so there is some amount of money that stops people from doing that.

Middle class people don't need to steal copper because other forms of theft are available to them.

I'm not saying "most drug addicts steal". I'm saying "a small number of addicts can create huge amounts of crime".

When we look at acquisitive crime we see an over-representation of people with addiction - to substances or gambling - who are stealing money to feed their addiction. For some people that's theft of copper, for others it's defrauding the company they work for.

This is a problem that many systems find hard to fix, especially with current drug laws.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cbm.339