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Ok, the issue with the protection money argument for welfare- and I'm 100% willing to believe that certain programs reduce the crime rate- is that most of that welfare goes to criminally-uninclined demographics. Old people who can't maintain a normal standard of living are a known phenomenon, we know what it looks like, and they're not mugging people with their walkers. They're living in squalor and dying of malnutrition-worsened diseases. Sure, that's bad, but the argument for avoiding it isn't 'well it's worse when they rob a liquor store' because they won't rob liquor stores.
Again, I'm 100% willing to believe that, say, TANF reduces shoplifting and prostitution rates. But that's a completely separate argument.
Like I covered before, in modern societies you don't have to do crime for basic survival and needs anymore. It's imperfect and has some wait times obviously, but people in need like my crazy aunt can get the food and shelter and clean water they need. Modern crime in modern first world nations is a choice. Now I'm a big arguer that criminals are mostly idiots with poor reasoning and self control skills before they are particularly "evil", but the point remains that crime isn't necessary in the first world and anyone being rational wouldn't resort to it for their basic needs. The diminishing returns hit really hard when it comes to aid. People will steal and fight and mug to go from 0 meals to 1 meal. Most won't to go from 3 to 4.
"Old people who can't maintain a normal standard of living are a known phenomenon," isn't really a thing in the US and most other developed nations, at least not at all how it used to be. But regardless the welfare for old people isn't from the "protection" scheme logic anyway, social security and pensions are from the "promise" logic. Like Ayn Rand wasn't gonna go around stabbing people, but she still collected on what was promised to her.
Yes, it's not a thing in the US. There's nowhere in the world, ever in human history, where the elderly committed lots of crime to survive. They just died. The logic for taking care of the elderly is compassion, not crime prevention. There are places right now where senior citizens need to eat dog food to survive. They're not stealing better food(potatoes and shit, not steak). 'Old people suffering from malnutrition until they get knocked out by flu season' happened because they'll just suffer rather than steal/rob.
My argument for the elderly isn't crime prevention, crime prevention is for people like my crazy aunt. The argument for the elderly is that they were promised pensions or social security either explicitly or implicitly and I don't think it's right for governments to rug pull on that. They were stupid promises, but you still should keep stupid promises.
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