If you think every hungry person is a thief, and the rich don't have a motive to steal, I'm not sure what to say. Humans in all situations are capable of greed and selfishness.

I would bet dollars to donuts that the proceeds made from these thefts went into drugs, alcohol, and entertainment than proving for any basic needs.

Rich don’t have a need to do petty theft. Most of these laws do target the poor and the problems of the poor, like drug abuse, petty theft, etc. Whether you like to believe it or not incidences of these crimes afflict the poor significantly more than a handful of middle class kleptomaniacs.

Oh, I fully agree that the poor more commonly commit and are victims of petty theft. What I disagree with is that hunger would even be in the top 10 drivers. Greed, addiction, antisocial disposition, lack of opportunity costs, are all far more significant. The idea that your typical thief is usually trying to put bread on the table is some sort of perverted noble savage fantasy.

Hunger is probably here a proxy for "basic needs" on the hierarchy of needs. In a modern day it can be for example a cell phone, computer, or car.

So in you mental model, these train thieves have no phone or car, are seeking an honest 9-5 job, and will put their gains towards that end?

Not everyone has to be a saint to be part of society. There are plenty of people that wouldn't be in a life of petty crime if they had better options. The fact that we have more train thieves than say any other given country is more to do with our lack of opportunities for these people than the fact that we aren't disincentivizing it enough. Plenty of places that have fewer disincentives for crime yet have less crime. Disincentives can work as a brute force method, but if there is an underlying reason why certain minorities or groups of people are inclined to what we have defined as a crime in society, then brute force methods will just push them toward alternatives, and it may not necessarily be finding a good 9-5 job as you suggest.

> If you think every hungry person is a thief, and the rich don't have a motive to steal

Please don't strawman my posts, especially when I've posted this[1] not more than a day ago.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29961052

Sorry of that came off as a straw man, I was trying to cut to what I saw as the core of your position, i.e. "the deprivation of resources that causes most of it" (theft).

Theft, like all of human behavior has many causes. You can look at what differentiates thieves from the working poor with similar lack of resources to determine some of the causes. Alternatively, you can look at what is in common between rich and poor thieves.

I have known far too many honest and hard-working poor people to believe that a lack of resources constitutes either a necessary or sufficient cause of theft.

If your primary point was that a hungry person will steal to feed themselves, I agree but don't think it is relevant to the social problem at hand.

If you were to ask me, I would say that people steal when they have little to lose, including integrity and empathy for their victims.