> Criminologists have offered several explanations for the increase, including the rise in gun sales early in the pandemic, changes in police behavior following the protests over the murder of George Floyd, and the social disruptions caused by closures of schools and interruptions in social services. But many people who work in criminal justice are zeroing in on another possible factor—the extended shutdown of so much of the court system, the institution at the heart of public order.

Why is there not a single mention of capitalist causes in the entire article?

- Rents (and real estate purchase prices) have gone through the roof over the last decades

- Cost of living (stuff like electricity, gas, gasoline, internet, groceries, basic food) has gone up as well and all but exploded during the last few months following the Ukraine invasion

- meanwhile, for an awful lot of people on the lower rungs of society, wages haven't been going up. Minimum wages have been stuck for years, and the "great resignation" may be a good meme and a desperately needed improvement for millions of people, but still many many more millions of people are stuck in exploitative shit jobs

- in parts of the country that have been left to rot by uncaring politicians, people are turning to drugs to self-medicate the sheer stress that living on the streets or without meaningful perspective in life brings with it

When people are forced to turn to crime, particularly small scale crime such as stealing food, to survive (or to fund their drug addiction), well... they will turn to crime.