More people at home to watch property
By Jarod Wells
Monday, November 16, 2009 at 4:15 p.m.
Read more: Local, State, National, Crime
(Quincy, Ill.) Cities across the country are finally seeing a positive effect of a struggling economy; less burglaries.
St. Louis for example has seen a 10% drop in burglaries in 2009.
Some experts are attributing that trend to more people being home because they are now unemployed.
We checked in to see if that is happening in the Tri-States as well.
The city of Hannibal saw a 6% drop in burglaries from 2007 to 2008.
Police Chief Lyndell Davis says the economy may have played a role in that, but there are many other factories that could have as well.
The Quincy Police Department says it also has seen a drop in burglaries over the last year.
"We were up last year, we were down this year. I have no evidence nor will I try to attribute that to any type of economic condition and say well the economy is worse, but it's better for crime, because there just hasn't been enough time to study that or really look at the facts," said QPD Deputy Chief Ron Dreyer.
Dreyer says when there is a spike in burglaries it is usually because there is a 'burglary ring,' with a few people committing a large number of crimes.
And it is a general trend for burglaries to go up and down from year to year.
