WMBD/WYZZ— Bloomington/Normal— Experts are linking robberies nationwide to the poor state of the economy.

"There's a clear linkage nationwide that when the economy is in bad shape, when unemployment begins to increase, if people lose their jobs and output falls, that crimes against property especially increase," Illinois Wesleyan Economics Professor Mike Seeborg said.

Property crimes like robberies, and there were four this week; two of them happened on Thursday. Around 9:30 p.m., a white male held-up an oriental foods store and earlier that same day, around 9 a.m. two men pretending to be police followed their victims to a business on Mitsubishi Motorway and stole their wallet. But, police say the amount of robberies we have been seeing, is not out of the ordinary.  

"It could be that it's being reported more frequently now so it does have that perception that type of crime is on the rise when in fact it's not," Normal Police Chief Kent Crutcher said. 

Since police say robberies in the Twin Cities are not on the rise, they have a hard time linking them to the economy; especially one's like Wednesday’s when a woman was mugged in Normal’s Junction Place parking garage. 

"These types of crimes are generated by either drug habits or alcohol habits," Crutcher said. 

Officials are not ruling out money matters just yet, especially when there are cases like Robert Sylvester's who was shot by police after leading them on a high-speed chase after allegedly robbing a Check 'n Go.

"When you're talking about bank robberies, business robberies, that kind of thing where the take might be substantial, that can be sometimes traced to a bad economy," Bloomington Police Spokesperson Duane Moss said. 

But in the end, experts say every robbery ends up hurting the economy even more.

"If robberies are more successful than the cost of doing banking services will increase so certainly we all bare those costs," Seeborg said.

Police say even though robberies in the Twin Cities are not on the rise, there have been some unique cases which could stick out to people, such as the increase in pizza delivery robberies.