Equating poor people with criminals is indeed quite discriminatory. It’s ironic to see that used in a statement from someone who believes themselves to be taking the moral high ground.
The equation he made isn't wrong, but it contradicts the fact that OP is criticizing people who agree with what they said themselves.
Data clearly shows a correlation between crime levels and average income in an area. Are we not mostly engineers used to working with data here? In fact, needing to "survive" is a common excuse used to justify the crimes committed in impoverished areas.
Note that I said correlation, not causation. If someone has data that says otherwise, please provide it because I would be genuinely intrigued.
