Crime and locked doors

There is often starry eyed reminiscence about the good old days; one of the recurrent themes is that, in the 50s, one could go out and safely leave the house unlocked. I do share that slightly biased view that many things were better back then but I have to ask whether the fact that the house was un-burgled on return was because people were more honest or because there was a lot less to steal! Maybe the fact that most women did not go out to work, staying at home to look after their children and husband had something to do with it and the much closer communities that existed then would have more easily spotted a stranger in the street.