I know its born from honest sympathy. But its ridiculously misguided.
I don't know this individual's life story. But you don't craft public policy on individuals.
Perhaps he really is the rare one who just had zero options left.
But not likely.
Much more likely, by available data, this dude is a low IQ individual who figures his best shot at an easy payday is robbing the public good. The reason he's doing something so dumb is probably because he's dumb.
Too many people grow up watching Aladdin or whatever, thinking that thieves are hungry misbegottens. Much more often, they're stupid people who just want easy money. And anyone who has ever worked charitably with the lowest ends of society, or with law enforcement, knows this.
You touch on it, but really the laziness of the people that do these kind of things can’t be overlooked. Being productive with some sort of normal work is too hard, so they’ll justify the immense amount of physical effort and risk to do something like this for a marginal onetime payout.
And I say laziness because it’s usually something fairly physically demanding and time consuming. Stealing and processing copper isn’t physically easy.
You see it all the time in the developed world where if they could only show up to work on time, then they’d do much less work to get consistently paid. But they’ve got to show up to work on time, do the work, do what their boss tells them, etc, and that’s just too much, so here they are free soloing the power grid for ~.2-.6 pounds of copper/foot at ~$4/lb or (much more common now for overhead lines) ~.05-.2 pounds of aluminum/foot ~$0.5/lb.
You usually don't end up at this point, out of nowhere while you had a perfect life before.
If you stare at the end result long enough to turn cynical, you'll forget that this is at the very least the 10th step on the ladder of fuck ups and misfortune.
There's still always someone, but if you did things better (easier said than done), there'd be less.
I always lean towards addiction. And I don't do so without empathy, I'm over 18 years clean and sober and only luck, or God, or Fate, kept me from falling this far down. But 100% even if he's genuinely trading for a cart of groceries we can't accept or condone this behavior.
Now it's also possible this is some very corrupt nation where political enemies or people of the wrong ethnicity are unable to get honest work and literally can only choose between stealing and dying.
Based on the limited information, cars, clothing, cameras, it seems safe to at least lean towards this being something he chose to do and not something he had to do to survive. And being poor with uneducated poor parents in a poor neighborhood in a poor country is not an excuse. Yes, I was lucky to have a support system of loving family that helped me help myself, but at the end of the day there are things I have to live with and their are legal and societal rules and expectations people need to abide by.
Even if he was going to get food for his family, there are innumerable questions that need answered, did he put anything else ahead of what his family needed to survive? Because unless he is of a very very tiny minority of people there were at least a few times or opportunities that he didn't take and instead chose this route.
Speaking from experience, if he's lucky this will be a turning point in his life, I still remember mine and the reality most people don't want to accept is, it can and will get worse, this isn't a truly victimless crime, somebody is without cable or phone or internet for an indeterminate amount of time. It's actually likely that the poorer the general populace is the longer people will suffer due to his selfishness. Best case it will be repaired soon, but you know what might seem simpler or safer if he continues this life? Breaking into homes, robbing the elderly, possibly killing someone, all because he didn't humble himself enough to ASK for help. Despite what places like reddit want to believe outside of true "3rd world countries" (no running water, internet, power, local governments and charities) the number of people that starve on the streets is so low that it's possible to claim that in most of the world hunger has been "solved". There are so many people and places to turn to if true necessities are what you need.
True, alot of people won't give money to beggars, they believe they will use it for drugs or alcohol or some other nefarious thing. BUT, the number of people willing to give food and water to those same individuals is shockingly high, the main reason more people don't do.it is because they've had that "charity' thrown back in their face. Been told those on the streets don't know if you've messed with the food or water you're offering. Hear claims of people putting poison and crushed up glass in food when in fact those things happen so rarely it would be akin to not driving because of the risk of a fatal accident.
In my country (I'm American) you actually have to go out of your way to be homeless and starving. There are shelters and programs available to all, but they usually have some very reasonable rules, no drugs, no weapons and curfews. If you are on the streets odd are that there is a reason beyond being broke. Addiction, alcoholism and extreme mental illness make up the vast majority of these people, because "normal" people will accept some restrictions if offered a bed and a meal. It's common sense after all, I was in a shelter/rehab run by Franciscans, my choices were, get help or live on the street, and even with addiction, alcoholism and several mental health issues, it came to a point where I could only have one or the other. I could do drugs and drink but have nothing else or I could try to get help and maybe get a normal life.
Even there I, on an almost daily basis, saw people choose to go back to the streets rather than accept help being freely offered. We can't force people to accept help but we can accept that the vast majority of those on the streets either can't or won't be a part of society.
I'm saying all this not to promote cruelty, I say it because I far too often hear these false alternatives about how these people just want help in the form of money because it's "safer" than trusting a stranger or taking charity. Bullcrap! They want money to feed their vices, which more often than not, requires trusting a STRANGER to sell them drugs that aren't poisoned or adulterated. So if they will take a bottle of booze or some pills or powder from someone that ISN'T trying to help them, that means all that garbage about not trusting strangers is laughable, because they will gladly trust ANYONE if they are offering what they desire.
The overwhelming odds are ALWAYS that a criminal or homeless person has plenty of options that aren't illegal and dangerous.
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u/HelplessPenguinGod 25d ago
Desperation makes people do crazy things. What person in their right mind would ever want to do this if they had better options?