Crime has been dropping in 2010, the opposite of what one would expect in a recession-damn-near depression.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/20/crime.statistics/index.html
And I don't know what's happening in the rest of the country but here in the Seattle area policing is being cut back due to budget issues. If your car is stolen, cops are not going to do anything beyond giving you necessary paperwork for your insurance claim. But now they have dropped all pretense of even trying to investigate car theft, which the local sheriff loudly announced in the press as being due to budget cuts. According to the link, car theft nationwide was down 9.7 percent in the first half of 2010.
So why is crime dropping in a recession? I have a few pet theories, but I want yours.