Poverty and Crime

What causes crime? Does poverty cause crime? Or does crime cause poverty? Some feel that poverty causes crime. Others though, feel that crime rates have nothing to do with poverty and that crime may actually cause poverty.
If poverty causes crime than why are crime rates lower in poor third world countries than in wealthy super powers? Robert Rector feels that it is not poverty that causes crime but the anti-poverty programs that cause crime. He feels that the United States has created its own crime problem because the U.S. pays people not to work or be married through the welfare program. In a sense people are being rewarded for doing nothing. …