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> I had ZERO concern about my identity being stolen in 1995. My identity has now been stolen 3x in the last 10 years and caused significant anxiety and hassle.

I have never been robbed, and I live in a place American suburbanites have told me is “dangerous.” But I have had my ID stolen. And to be honest I’d much rather be hacked or miss an ATM skimmer than having someone sticking a gun in my face demanding my wallet.

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I've had both.

Identity theft takes longer to resolve. Physical altercation is usually more immediately resolved, though the adrenaline and residual stress can take a long while to overcome.

Overall though violent crime is down nationally. That said my partner was robbed, pistol whipped, wrongly accused by the cops of being the robber, and then spent months recovering from a pistol-whip induced concussion. So yeah, sometimes a simple street robbery can take some time to resolve.

My condolences -- that really sucks.

This is a good point and I was thinking about this as I read the article and wrote my reply. I've also never been the victim of violent crime and I admit that if I had been I would likely feel differently about this.

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