Nevermind your great-great-granny’s battered pearl broach, housebreaking criminals are now eyeballing your gaming paraphernalia instead.
According to an FBI report on property crimes published in USA Today, console theft in America has increased 285% over the last three years, from 11074 cases in 2007 to 42615 in 2009. That’s a lot of saved games lost forever. If you want to get really paranoid about it, their report also shows a significant spike around the Christmas season so it’s probably a good time to bury your stuff in your zombie holocaust bunker or something. If you live in America, anyway. If you live in South Africa, your stuff’s probably been stolen already. Twice.
“Criminals are rational. They steal things that have high value, are easily transportable, and easily sold,” University of Massachusetts-Lowell criminologist Larry J. Siegel told USA Today. “The most expensive thing in my house is my refrigerator, but nobody is trying to steal my refrigerator.”
Despite game consoles seeing the biggest increase of thefts in the electronics category, they’re not at the top yet. TVs are being dragged off at a rate of 78227 this year (up from 27176 in 2007), while laptops have jumped 32% from 96834 to 128280 across the same time span. Of course, with recent statistics showing household console ownership in the States is now at 60%, we can probably expect to see console theft increasing even more over there.
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