Having grown up poor, and immersed in a culture of crime, I'm going to stick to my guns on crime and poverty, and the chicken/egg dicussion on that. I sought improve, invest, build, and seek to improve myself. I moved out of my neighborhood, got a real job....
I will also add to that something that I heard recently. Wealth as the cause of crime... This persons reasoning was that crime is pretty low where everyone is poor. Nothing to steal for one. But the idea of amomosity created across the class divides made a lot of sense to me.
Back on topic though... Can you imagine going to steal copper from a transformer vault? (Yes YOU and I CAN... We are electricians!) It is not as if there has not been no publicity about this type of thing. People are warned since they were children not to mess with electricity, or to mess with fallen powerlines. They have heard about the deaths, and the third degree burns - there are constant news stories about it lately, and they do not live in caves... For us, as electricians, the next equal I could think about would be recycling explosives...
"Ya know Johnny, you should quit that job at McD's... Big money in recycling explosives. Yesirrie, you could make in ONE night what you do in a whole month of 32 hour weeks that they let you have without offering you any befefits that are required for 40 hour weeks in most States...."
"Yeah Bob, but dont explosives have a tendancy to - you know - Explode????"
"Well yeah... But looky here - I bought that boat with recycled explosives - and there aint a red blooded American who don't want a luxury item like a BOAT."
I don't know--- I'm ranting now. But somehow there are people who think that their time is more profitable recycling installed live copper than doing some other job. And I'm talking to people who have demo'ed out panels and all kinds of electrical wiring before. And even slap-dash that takes time, not to mention hauling it down to the scrap yard. To sell a couple hundred in copper probably took them 6~8 hours work. $25 an hour, and risk of death or jail or both.
