True, poverty is the leading cause of street-level crime. One does not knock over liquor stores because it’s lucrative. One knocks over liquor stores because they’re shutting the power off TOMORROW if you don’t get that bill paid. It’ll get worse as automation takes over traditional minimum wage jobs.

We need to implement Universal Basic Income. It would solve so many problems at once. Finland ended homelessness just by giving anyone who asked a free apartment. Not a fancy one, but it turns out a safe place to sleep and get cleaned up works wonders for returning people to society at large.

But Republicans don’t WANT to reduce crime. That would mean less money going to the privatized prison industry, and the effective slave labor pool it provides. It would be one less boogeyman to scare the dolts with. Doggy gotta make a show of chasing the car, but Doggy doesn’t want to actually CATCH it.