I want to agree, and i mean i usually will vote for a party that promises to enact programs like this, but i think the framing of it just being about the money or "getting them back above the poverty line" is deeply misguided and sets us up for disappointment. ::: spoiler There exist some people who are career criminals... they do it because they love it. [Now, a successful criminal isn't "poor" but they tend to live as if they are, because it allows them to enlist desperate people or sell drugs to desperate people by appearing as one of them.] ::: Those people aren't going to be like "huh, looks like society loves me! So i should stop being a criminal!" They're going to go "great, more venture capital for my hijacking next thursday! So why the government, police and voters in general don't advocate for blindly distributing wealth in the hopes it cures crime - they see it as rewarding bad behaviour. They perhaps know that criminals themselves see it as a reward for their bad behaviour (if you listen to organised criminals, this is exactly how they see it) Tl;dr i think crime is more down to culture and specific contextual problems (like access to guns and increased opportunity from lack of safeguarding) than poverty.