Comment on Identity theft emerges in survey as Maine’s most common crime

The most common crime affecting Mainers – identity theft – also is the crime that most often goes unreported to police, according to the 2015 Maine Crime Victimization Survey. Identify theft is the type of crime that has consistently gone up in the surveys, affecting more than one in three Mainers in the past year. “Certainly we’re seeing these rates because were all living at the intersection of wonderful technology, data warehousing and a bunch of criminals that are always finding new ways to commit crime,” said Jane Carpenter of Maine Identity Services, a member of a panel of experts who gathered at the University of Southern Maine to discuss the survey results. The Maine Crime Victimization Survey is conducted every few years by the Maine Statistical Analysis Center at USM’s Muskie School of Public Service.