I don't know if this is coincidence, but just as a data point, I've lived in my neighborhood here in Durham, NC for almost 6 years now and have never had any issues. In the last 6 months or so, the break-ins around here have reached epidemic proportions - we hear about new ones weekly. Scary stuff - a lot of people on edge. I don't like to feed the fear-mongering, but based on our small sample set, this is a real phenomenon. And it's all because of the economy.