[varispeed]

My theory is that since those crimes are non violent, there is a silent approval, as long as there is no massive public outrage and associated PR costs for a government. The reasoning is that the cost to the society is lower than if you were going to process those people through legal system and then keep them in jail.

If these crimes were costing the society more than keeping perpetrators locked up then situation would have changed. Another reason is that some people, by their nature, just cannot have a "normal" job and so they hustle. If you take away non-violent options, then there is a chance they'd turn to something violent to achieve their goals and that would be costly.