Over the past few years, a number of factors (increasingly miniaturised chipsets, cheap Chinese manufacturing, and the purchasing power of gigantic retailers like Tesco and Wal-Mart) has resulted in household electronic goods like DVD players becoming ridiculously cheap. The effect of this has been a steep fall in burglaries, as criminals realise that knocking over houses is no longer worth the bother:

"The falling value of electrical goods means housebreaking no longer makes sense. Even the simplest of criminal minds will carry out a risk-benefit analysis,"

He said: "There's no doubt the falling value of electrical goods has made housebreaking a less attractive crime. You can buy a new DVD player in Asda for about 20 quid, so there is no longer the same market for stolen goods.

Dr Cook added: "If you really want very cheap second-hand goods, they can be bought at money lender or cash-back places and are definitely not stolen. Second-hand stolen goods can't compete with that."

The other side of the rise of miniaturisation and integration is that, with people carrying more valuable high-tech gadgets on their persons, street mugging has become a lot more profitable, and consequently increased.

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