Business

One good point for the recession
by Zuzana Zelenakova

It seems people in the US have realized that the recession has also its advantages. One, at least. Thousands of people that were laid off and have not succeeded in finding a new job so far are spending most of the time where else as at home. And they keep a good eye on their homes and neighborhood. Many cities and towns have reported fall in the number of burglaries. And police all over the country is grateful to these vigilant citizens. "With a lot more unemployed people, a lot more people are staying home, and they see more in their neighborhood," says Sgt. Thomas Lasater from St. Louis County where the number of burglaries dropped by 35 percent during the first half of ! this year. Similar development can be seen in other places too. After the initial rise of the crime at the beginning of the recession it seems the trend is quite the opposite. The officials are quite surprised because according to the experts´ expectations it was supposed to continue. "We've seen that in every single recession in the U.S. at least since the '50s," says Richard Rosenfeld, sociologist from University of Missouri-St.Louis, referring mainly to property crimes. "I would have expected by now some upward movement in burglary numbers." In Minneapolis, the police have recorded 15 percent fall in burglaries in 2009 so far. In Aurora, near Chicago, 15.5 percent decrease has been reported as compared to the same period previous year. Also in Los Angeles and Phoenix the number of burglaries is going down. According to Phoenix police detective James Holmes citizens are paying more attention to various neighborhood watch programs and their surroundings. "We are gett! ing a lot more calls of suspicious activities in our neighborh! oods," h e said. Sometimes people even take direct action when they witness a burglary.

related story (sgx15857): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091109/ap_on_bi_ge/us_meltdown_...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 2:11 PM