Have you so little respect for people that you think they are all thieves? In India and China, countries in which most of the top 10% by income would fall below the US poverty line most people never steal. Theft is not mostly about poverty.
Weird take. Petty theft (like the one being discussed here) can definitely be correlated with inequality.
I agree that most people will not steal. That's been my experience of growing up in a country with rampant poverty and inequality (and crime).
That said, the more people are in need, the more incentive for them to look for solutions outside of a system that has inherently failed them and the people they know.
I have myself been robbed and assaulted multiple times. I have had relatives kidnapped. Cars stolen leaving or entering their own garage, sometimes in nice areas of the city. I have been myself held at gunpoint by both criminals and police. The house I grew up in has been burglarised multiple times. I have not once, and don't know a single person who has been assaulted or robbed by a middle or upper class person.
There is probably also some correlation between white collar crime and corruption, and poverty, but I suspect the direction of causality goes the other way around in this case.
