It's hard to say whether poverty drives criminality... any difficult situation can cause immoral behavior. For some, poverty is the driver of criminal behavior, no doubt. Yet, middle class and rich people do the same thing - how about Madoff, right? What drives criminality imo is acute stress in some part of one's life. Poverty may be one culprit. But, for others, a dysfunctional family may be the cause. Loneliness, greed, anger, fear and narcisism (for whatever reason, genetic or acquired) can also be potential drivers for such bad behavior. Don't forget that the gradual secularization of our society is removing the traditional source of moral guidance (eg, church, synagogue, etc) from many kids' lives, and the schools are incapable of filling the void. As a parent, my first candidate is the breakdown in family structure and support. In the lower socio-economic layers (eg, inner city poor) government policies have many negative consequenses, like reduction of welfare benefits when a single parent marries, reluctance of police to "waste time" in poor neighborhoods, etc. In the upper layers of society, extreme pursuit of self interest by the parents also leaves many young people without adequate guidance and support. Divorce is a big player here too, although many resonable adults fight hard against this possiblity. Consumerism may be the ultimate criminal here, as thousands of very smart people spend their whole professional life promoting "love of stuff" to young people... who then go out and steal girl scout cookie money from 9 year olds to satisfy their outsized desires.
In one of those related videos mom and dad were in court. They didn't strike me as particularly ashamed or apologetic. I never understood the need to support a family member no matter what they've done or how obvious it is they are guilty.
That blonde bimbo is a piece of work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=Ddax7FwGI3E EDIT: Holy moly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhaGrCSq7YM&feature=related
When young pretty girls keep themselves thin, deface themselves and steal things everyone in the court system has a good idea of what is going on at home.