The economic backgrounds of prisoners in every nation on earth is not consistent with your position that 'there is no data to support poverty has anything to do with criminal behaviour'.
Prisoners are poorer than the general public. Yes, some richer criminals might escape justice. But poverty, when combined with injustice or lack of opportunity or bad habits, can foster envy / ingratitude / hopelessness / lack of self-reflection / lack of idealism.
'Justice is what love looks like in public' - Cornel West.
Correct. However, I think that the claim in general from the political left is something more like:
They can’t help it. Scarcity inspires crime. That is, the high crime rates are linked causally with poverty. One can find studies of varying relevance to bolster or contradict that claim.
In my opinion, there's way too much variation in crime rates among different ethnic groups even after accounting for SES for poverty to be the primary determinant of crime.
East Asia presents one of the most interesting case studies because over the past 40 years or so since China started its rapid modernization post-Mao, there has been very little difference between China and wealthier countries in the region such as Japan or South Korea when it comes to things like crime or educational attainment. Given that SES is universally held to be the primary causal factor behind most life outcomes, the fact that there has been no real correlation between SES and things like crime or educational attainment in a region comprising 20% of the global population surely constitutes one of the most non-trivial and interesting data points worthy of study.
The economic backgrounds of prisoners in every nation on earth is not consistent with your position that 'there is no data to support poverty has anything to do with criminal behaviour'.
Prisoners are poorer than the general public. Yes, some richer criminals might escape justice. But poverty, when combined with injustice or lack of opportunity or bad habits, can foster envy / ingratitude / hopelessness / lack of self-reflection / lack of idealism.
'Justice is what love looks like in public' - Cornel West.
Correct. However, I think that the claim in general from the political left is something more like:
They can’t help it. Scarcity inspires crime. That is, the high crime rates are linked causally with poverty. One can find studies of varying relevance to bolster or contradict that claim.
In my opinion, there's way too much variation in crime rates among different ethnic groups even after accounting for SES for poverty to be the primary determinant of crime.
East Asia presents one of the most interesting case studies because over the past 40 years or so since China started its rapid modernization post-Mao, there has been very little difference between China and wealthier countries in the region such as Japan or South Korea when it comes to things like crime or educational attainment. Given that SES is universally held to be the primary causal factor behind most life outcomes, the fact that there has been no real correlation between SES and things like crime or educational attainment in a region comprising 20% of the global population surely constitutes one of the most non-trivial and interesting data points worthy of study.