The iPhone crime wave: what Gotham's gobbled Apples reveal about the nation's falling crime rates.

• Author: Beato, Greag

DURING THE last 20 years, law enforcement officials, criminologists, journalists, and other cultural observers have attempted to solve the mystery of the nation's declining crime rates. Was the post-1990 drop in murders and other serious crimes due to new police tactics that concentrated resources in unsafe neighborhoods? Maybe. Was it longer prison sentences? The waning crack trade? Increased availabilty of abortions? Maybe, possibly, perhaps.

Bucking the trend, New York City in 2012 experienced its first overall increase in major crimes in 20 years. But this time, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kedy have decisively fingered the culprit: It was Steve Jobs. Or, rather, the devices Apple produced under his watch.

According to New York Police Department (NYPD) statistics, there were 3,484 more major crimes in 2012 than there were in 2011. (These numbers compare the first 51 weeks of each year.) The rise in the total number of Apple-related thefts--which occurred during burglaries, robberies, and grand larcenies--exceeded that number. (The NYPD keeps track of seven categories of crime that it deems "major." They are murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny auto. It keeps track of three categories of crime that it deems "minor." They are petit larceny, misdemeanor assault, and misdemeanor sex crimes.)

"If you took out thefts of Apple products--not Galaxies, Samsungs--just Apple products, our total [major] crime rate would be lower than it was last year," Bloomberg told the New York Post.

Presumably New York City's criminals are snapping up iPods, iPhones, and iPads not because they prefer Apple's battery life management over that of its competitors but because the resale market for Apple devices is robust and predictable. According to The Wall Street Journal, high tariffs in countries like Brazil can drive up the price of a new entry-level iPhone 4s to $1,000, so used ones go for as much as $400 there. Here in the U.S., secondhand dealers buying in bulk on Craigslist pay as much as $coo for a used iPhone c. Demand is strong. Resale prices are high. There are millions of iPhones out there, but unlike so many other products in our age of plenty, they have not yet become too abundant to steal.

With other brands, theft is an iffier proposition. That snatchable seven-inch non-Apple tablet could have an initial retail price anywhere between $99 and $499, and there may not be much of a...