Property crime is economic crime.

We haven’t seen the latest data, but from news reports and conversations with our colleagues in the business world, there seems to be a sudden increase in office break-ins, smash-and-grab car theft, identity-theft and bank robberies.

It’s easy to blame the recession and shrug things off. But victims of these crimes pay a huge cost in the tremendous inconvenience involved in setting things right. The rest of us pay the cost in the form of higher insurance costs, increased need for computer and other security programs and higher bank charges.

It is incumbent upon our law enforcement folk to find the perpetrators and put them behind bars. But it pays for business owners to watch each others’ backs. As they used to say on NYPD Blue, “Let’s be careful out there.”

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