On Friday, March 28th, my wife and I went to visit my parents in a nice Sacramento suburb. We parked our car in the driveway overnight, and some bastards take some kind of instrument and smash the driver’s side window and dent the metal trim surrounding the window. Motivation: an iPod Touch that I, now regrettably, forgot to bring into the house.

Thankfully, the iPod was itemized on our renters insurance, and the window was covered with a small car insurance deductible. All in all, it was only a few hours of hassle to get everything sorted out over the phone, have the window replaced and clean up the mess.

However, I have been considering the following question: What, exactly, would prompt a minor crime such as this in a “nice” area of town. Perhaps the area is not as nice as I think it is, but all indications show that the population is generally of the older variety with grown children. Of course, miscreants may swing in to the nice neighborhoods specifically to target people they assume have a higher income than themselves. That notwithstanding, it still takes a certain amount of balls to break into a car just to steal an iPod. I believe that this specific crime boils down to the current economic climate of the country, and, ultimately, the combined actions (or inactions) of our government that has widened the perceived disparity between classes and the overall state of despair.

Our country, with no uncertainty, is in an economic downturn. I’m no economist, but I believe it’s more psychology than economic factors that’s stopping the government and officials from uttering the word ‘recession.’ No matter what it is, it ain’t good. The country is in great monetary debt and many families are tortured by the threat of having banks foreclose on their loans. Though the current administration passed the Economic Stimulus Package, I think it will take a regime change (either Democratic or Republican) before our country is able to get out of this rut. Meanwhile, our “team” morale has been shattered, and people who were doing fine before this rut are now, driven out of some form of desperation, acting on primal impulses and initiating misdemeanor crimes in order to satiate their inner desire.

Granted, no amount of perceived psychological security will ever completely stop crimes of this nature; there are certain primal urges that some types of people are unable to contain. However, as the country recovers from this mess that we’re in, I’m sure crimes of this nature will decrease, and restore the peace back into a local suburb near you.