TOWNSHEND — As the economy continues to crumble, more people are committing property crimes. Burglaries are on the rise.
With the space program out of the way, it looks as if crime has become the last frontier of American society.
Being a criminal in Vermont isn't easy. The pickings are slim, for one thing. Most burglars make off with a mixed bag of odds and ends that they would be lucky to get a few bucks for at a flea market: a gas can, an old .22, a chainsaw that has seen too many Octobers. Few Vermonter keep bags of diamonds in their homes.
The vast majority of break-ins are poorly planned and executed. Some of them seem like self-destructive cries for help, especially when you consider the risk:reward ratio. Most homeowners are armed, and a burglary conviction can get you five years in state prison.
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There is a certain rationale for the harshness of the law. Vermont is thinly policed, and most of the state is a maze of back roads dotted with isolated homes.
Anyone who has been the victim of a property crime knows that the real harm is the sense of violation. The fear of it.
Not that any of this is new. There has always been some crime in northern New England.
In the 1970s, we went through the first oil shock. The price of fuel oil skyrocketed, and wood stoves, once considered outmoded junk, became sought after.
Thieves cruised dirt roads looking for camps and vacation homes with stovepipes. lt was a simple, if hard, way to score some fast cash: back a truck up to a building, smash the door in, grab the stove, and take off.
One guy in eastern Maine, “Three-fingered Willy,” made a specialty out of this type of theft and became a local legend, a sort-of bogeyman whom parents warn their kids about as the sun is setting.
Americans have always had a love/hate relationship with criminals. Turn on a TV or look at a rack of books in the supermarket, and you will see that much of our entertainment revolves around criminals. They are our pet monsters.
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Crime is a lot less common in Vermont than other places. Yet, this crime is a powerfully destructive force that sends ripples through our small society.
Offenders emerge from prison with almost no prospects. If you assume that it costs $40,000 a year to keep someone locked up, then a five-year sentence costs the taxpayer $200,000 - maybe more, if you consider things like welfare costs and lost tax revenues.
Many of the break-ins in rural areas have a doomed, almost suicidal, quality about them.
Several years ago a few young guys smashed the glass door of a gas station and stole some cartons of cigarettes. They were soon caught and given lengthy prison sentences. When I pass by there at night and see the moonlight reflected in that glass door, I think of state prison, the malevolent glow of floodlights illuminating guard towers.
Someone has started stealing copper wire from electrical substations. This is a disturbing sign, as the same thing happened in the old Soviet Union after Communism collapsed.
A Marine mechanic outside Portland, Maine told me that someone had started stripping copper pipes out of homes.
“Some people I know went to Disney World,” he said, lighting up a cigarette with gnarled hands. “When they came back, their plumbing and wiring was gone. Torn right out."
Vermont has lost a lot of jobs in the last few decades. Countless dairy farms have closed. The great factories in Windsor, Springfield, Bellows Falls, and Brattleboro are empty and silent.
The politicians and CEOs who helped ship the jobs overseas have retired to their estates. Future generations will pay the price. And that is the greatest crime of all.