I started a couple of responses and then deleted them after thinking about what you said - you could be right to a degree.

There have been people I've known and would have sworn they were honest, but then find that they've been embezzling from the Volunteer Fire Department or Youth Sports League for whom they handled the money, so it's not always career criminals that go to the bad. All the ones I know are doing it to support a gambling habit ("I just 'borrowed' it, I was going to pay it back when I hit the jackpot"

Nobody in this country (or yours, I'll wager) goes hungry because they don't have enough money; like you, the biggest problem our "poor" have is obesity, diabetes, and heart disease as a result of being way overweight. They're generally stealing to get drugs, a fancy smartphone, or a $2000 sound system for their low-rider car.

Having served on several grand juries over the years, and thus having heard the details of hundreds of people here being indicted for theft, I've never seen anyone who was just a regular citizen who started housebreaking because "times were hard". ALL of them chose physical theft and burglary as a career long ago.

Maybe the drug dealers DO go to more housebreaking when their customers can't pay them like they used to. Not a big problem here, for obvious reasons to which T.U.D. obliquely referred ...

Cheers!

Lannis