The correlation between poverty and crime is well known, and it is often assumed that this correlation is completely explained with the assertion that poverty causes crime. Gary Becker has this post at the Becker-Posner Blog noting that causation can also run the other way: crime causes poverty, or at least it inhibits the ability of poor, crime-ridden countries to escape from it. Judge Posner's comment includes several points: decriminalizing acts that don't need to be crimes, eliminating economic restrictions that create the need for bribes, and increasing punishments for maximum deterrence.

Although Becker's post is addressed to international comparisons, there is a lesson for domestic policy as well. When people who claim to care about the poor undercut law enforcement, they are cutting the legs off the economic ladder that poor people need to climb out of poverty.