Many writers claim that nearly all crime is caused by economic conditions, or in other words that poverty is practically the whole cause of crime.  Endless statistics have been gathered on this subject which seem to show conclusively that property crimes are largely the result of the unequal distribution of wealth.  But crime of any class cannot safely be ascribed to a single cause.  Life is too complex, heredity is too variant and imperfect, too many separate things contribute to human behavior, to make it possible to trace all actions to a single cause.  No one familiar with courts and prisons can fail to observe the close relation between poverty and crime.  All lawyers know that the practice of criminal law is a poor business.  Most lawyers of ability refuse such practice because it offers no financial rewards.  Nearly all the inmates of penal institutions are without money.  This is true of almost all men who are placed on trial.  Broad generalizations have been made from statistics gathered for at least seventy-five years.  It has been noted in every civilized country that the number of property crimes materially increases in the cold months and diminishes in the spring, summer and early autumn.  The obvious cause is that employment is less regular in the winter time, expenses of living are higher, idle workers are more numerous, wages are lower, and, in short, it is harder for the poor to live.  Most men and women spend their whole lives close to the line of want; they have little or nothing laid by.  Sickness, hard luck, or lack of work makes them penniless and desperate.  This drives many over the uncertain line between lawful and unlawful conduct and they land in jail.  There are more crimes committed in hard times than in good times.  When wages are comparatively high and work is steady fewer men enter the extra-hazardous occupation of crime.  Strikes, lockouts, panics and the like always leave their list of unfortunates in the prisons.  Every lawyer engaged in criminal practice has noticed the large numbers of prosecutions and convictions for all sorts of offences that follow in the wake of strikes and lockouts.

The cost of living has also had a direct effect on crime.  Long ago, Buckle, in his “History of Civilization,” collected statistics showing that crime rose and fell in direct ratio to the price of food.  The life, health and conduct of animals are directly dependent upon the food supply.  When the pasture is poor cattle jump the fences.  When food is scarce in the mountains and woods the deer come down to the farms and villages.  And the same general laws that affect all other animal life affect men.  When men are in want, or even when their standard of living is falling, they will take means to get food or its equivalent that they would not think of adopting except from need.  This is doubly true when a family is dependent for its daily bread upon its own efforts.