My guess is that criminals are evenly sprinkled across income distributions, but being prosecuted skews towards poverty because police / justice incentives are set by wealthy elites.
* Police incentives are set by wealthy elites might be "Higher policed areas are wealthier" or just "Weathier areas are full of people who commit less petty crime / visible violent crime that would be deterred by patrols"
* "Criminals are evenly sprinkled across income distributions" might actually be that Conscientiousness is highly correlated with lifetime earnings AND Conscientiousness is negatively correlated with lifetime convictions
There's tons of conflicting arrows, nothing is settled, but there sure are lots of political reasons to assume it's a clear case.
And yet, in places like NYC, the complaint from many activists is the opposite - that poor people get arrested more because its the poorer areas with more policing.
A simple example in NYC is turnstile jumping. The people willing to risk a ticket/police engagement over a $2.90 fare are likely not high income. Yes you do see it even in higher income areas but not at nearly the same rate. Ride a train that goes through rich and poor neighborhoods and spend 10 minutes at the turnstiles of each.. the disparity is huge.
Some argue it's unfair that people have to pay the fare and it should just be free. To me it seems like moving the goalposts on what we consider crime. There's already programs for reduced fairs for students, elderly, and low income. There's plenty of other examples of this behavior.
Couldn’t both things be true? Could different cities and police departments have differing contexts, differing problems?