"Being mugged [in the UK] is now part of my everyday life"

When people think the probability of a crime being solved is very low, they stop reporting the crimes. From the London Evening Standard:

We used to discuss schools and nannies.

Now the main topic of conversation among my friends is who got mugged and how.

Mostly talk dwells on the sheer chutzpah with which the crimes are committed.

It's not unusual to have teenagers go through a roster of their day's activities to which they add “Oh, and I got mugged on the way home” to the list.

The difference now is that we've got so used to it that we almost take it for granted — and I speak as someone whose car was carjacked and whose house was broken into, with us in it, listening to his every stumble.

When my husband chased the robber down the street, the dutiful police officer advised us to install even more expensive security.

He took one look at my watch and suggested I go without. What next? No clothes?

When my phone was stolen from my car last week while I tried to open my front door (the culprit later sniggered when I dialled it), I came to the conclusion that crime is so rampant that ordinary citizens like us have stopped even bothering informing the police (I certainly didn't).

Chief Superintendent Mark Heath of Kensington and Chelsea reassures me that 451 personal robberies were recorded in the borough in the past 12 months: that should calm me because that is statistically fewer than the year before. Perhaps they are in a different part of the borough from where I live.

The statistics also don't match our experience because the victims have developed immunity.

We just sit in our fortresses, hoarding our worldly goods with cameras and private security guards while assuming that every Sainsbury's unloading session could end in terror. . . . .