Crime is Down 40% Since 1990, Since Everyone Has a Cellphone

Last night I picked up a new iPhone 4. What a change from the olden days. I actually have had a cellular telephone since 1992. I bought the first one from a guy in Hadley, and it came in a little plastic basket, and had a corded handset.

I remember being up in Maine and using the thing, and worried that the ten cents a minute was going to really add up. I didn’t actually use it that much back then, and finally it was stolen out of my Toyota when parked on a street in Holyoke.

Over the years I’ve gone through so many little brick-style phones. Cute little ones that flipped open, and chunky ones that slid down. Now I sense a ongoing rift between those of us who worship our Apple devices and those who refuse to go that way, and buy Droids. Or the many more friends I know who stick with their Motorola style flip phones and have no interest in moving to the expense of a smart phone.

I noticed too, that most of the ads on TV have to do with phones. It still amazes me that when I’m on a subway, or in a huge football stadium, nearly every single person around me is carrying a phone. No wonder crime is down 40% since 1990. There are so many reporters who phone in things, how can anyone get away with anything?

An English cop I met in France last week confirmed this. He said there is less and less crime fighting, and petty thefts, and that the new innovation is an alarm that can be activated by the people who watch all of those cameras around London. In some areas, the watcher can sound a siren to stop a crime in progress. Otherwise, all they can do is call someone but by then it might be too late, so the siren is designed to shock the criminal out of doing the bad thing he was thinking of doing.