Thieves in the night...

...stay home. An unintended benefit of all the darkness in Övertorneå is that the crime rate has dropped like 50%. It is too dark for crime! There isn't enough ambient light to see anything, so you can't go around without needing a torch, which draws too much attention to you. So the police have a lot less to do.

With the winter solstice coming in a couple of weeks, and it only getting lighter and lighter, maybe the council should just give up and leave the lights off. People are generally used to the dark up there, and are generally not too disturbed by the lights being off. Another town beyond the Arctic circle, Gällivare, is saving money and getting great reviews by turning off every 2nd streetlight. So why not stick with the logical next step?

On a related theme, this might have landed in your inbox already, but if you haven't seen it it is pretty damn funny. The world's worst burglar?

http://media.skoopy.com/misc/worst_burglar/

Just a note to be careful clicking on the homepage afterward - adult pics are present