Exactly, the incentives in any sane system should be creating a situation where there is very little crime. And of course, meeting people's basic needs is the best way to do that. Parenti does a great job detailing this in Blackshirts and Reds where he shows how crime shot through the roof after collapse of USSR, and policing increased massively in former Soviet republics.

Meanwhile, US has perverse incentives in place because there is actual profit being made from imprisoning people while there is no incentive to actually provide for people's needs. This results in US having the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. US is the very definition of a prison state.