Credit Crunch Cause for Rising Crime?

The effects of recession are being seen across many aspects of life, but with such significant changes happening in the social sphere, who is winning and who is losing out?

The police are all set to have an extremely busy few years. There has already been a 25% increase in personal thefts and a 4% increase in burglaries since the recession took hold. And, though no doubt the metropolitan police certainly will try to underplay the facts, figures suggest that knifepoint robberies have increased by 5%. The trend is clear, the recession has paved the way for a significant rise in robberies.

Car crime in the UK already happens at an astonishing level; there are 2 million car crime offences every year. Dwell on that number for a moment, 2 million car crime offences every year, that's 5479 every single day. With an uncertain future and a recession looming overhead, those figures are surely set to rise, so the police have a huge job on their hands.

It is indeed ironic to note, that during these times of economic turmoil, there are new companies thriving on the climate generated by the very recession itself. Capitalism has the uncanny ability to turn any increase or decrease in social trends into a market. So where does the opportunity lie? Tradesmen's vehicles are the most targeted - as Inspector Steve Worron of Essex Police explains.

“There is a much stronger chance of tradesmen’s commercial vehicles being broken into as they usually contain the high value equipment such as power tools that thieves target.” Constantly the target of the organised theft of their power-tools, they are now turning to the installation of a van vault to protect their precious cargo. The vault basically consists of a large impenetrable box which is bolted to the floor of your van, which means that if anyone does manage to get in the van, they will never break their way through to the booty. Thanks to the fear of increased crime rates the company has recently seen a rise in sales.

It’s not just the rise in crime that a zombie like profit driven system has turned into a market to gain from. Liquidation companies have never been busier; as companies fold into bankruptcy their assets are sold to the highest bidder, meaning the people running these auctions are having a bumper year.

"The amount of work we're getting from liquidators has at least doubled over the last year," said Ricky Wilson, general manager of Wilsons Auctions.

The profits don't stop there, fraud investigators, storage companies, debt collectors, bailiffs, and recruitment companies specialising in outsourcing are all having a whale of a time whilst the world’s belt buckles.