This does make a lot of assumptions. Namely that poor people and rich commit the same amount of crimes in the same type category. But here’s the thing: if I’m rich or middle class I don’t have the same needs as the poor. I’m every bit as capable of committing the same crimes if I don’t hold tight to my convictions regarding my own behaviour. But I don’t have the same motivating factors. Why would I steal bread if I have the money for it? I’d like to think (and hope) I would never do that even if I ended up on the streets tomorrow, but it’s not something I’ve ever been in a situation where that’d be remotely tempting
It’s not that rich are any better or commit less crimes, but they are in better situations so the crimes they’re more likely to commit or get caught with will reflect their needs and wants
Edit: re-reading what you wrote, are your statistics based on total number of convictions or the results of trials? (Or both)
The 1st and 2nd paragraphs were written sarcastically, though probably that was not so clear on re-reading it. Apologies for that.
The first para was to point out the silliness of demonizing "government" or "lawyers". Just as any group (gardeners, teachers, small business owners, CEOs) lawyers are a varied mix of folks: parents and daughters/sons, and optimists/pessimists, democrats/republicans, and righteous/unethical persons. For example, public defenders are underpaid, overworked, but many are passionate believers in justice. They are not naïve; they are what I would call true patriots willing to walk the talk of “justice for all”.
And talking about “government as if it were some monolithic entity is silly. It’s an attempt to avoid recognizing that government is made up of people, just like you and me, who go to work, pay their bills, deal with their children’s illnesses and joys, etc. just as we all do. The institutions may be inefficient and bureaucratic but the hundreds of thousands of folks working in various government functions are largely just trying to get by and take care of their families.
The second para was to mock the assumption that the death penalty is neutrally applied, or based objectively on how "horrible: the crime is. The evidence is overwhelming that local prosecutors, when faced with a non-white defendant, stack juries with whites.
The third para follows from the 2nd, to show that there are severe racial disparities in who receives the death penalty. To your question, it does not matter, for this specific point, what the % distribution of crimes is. For the "Identical" Crime of 1st degree murder, a person of color is far more likely to be sentenced to death than a white person. I.e. despite the crimes being identical in severity, the punishments are much harsher for non-whites than whites. That is what the scandal in North Carolina is all about.
Yes, a rich person probably will risk criminal activity for a higher monetary amount than a poor person, but I don’t think, based on just that, that you can say the proportion of rich committing crimes is different than the proportion of poor committing crimes. The rich, however, do get to call it "White-Collar" crimes. As if a CEO ripping off and bankrupting a pension fund is in some way 'less horrible" than a plumber stealing tools from a construction site, that causes the project to lose money.
Data on income and crime does show that the poor (below the Poverty line) are twice as likely to be victims of crime than the rich. But the causes are not clear; since the rich tend to live in areas with greater security, often walled off enclaves, and can afford burglar alarms, etc.
Another big driver is income inequality (huge difference in wealth/assets owned between the rich and poor). Inequality predicts homicide rates “better than any other variable”, says Martin Daly, professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at McMaster University in Ontario and author of
Killing the Competition: Economic Inequality and Homicide.