Link between crime and inflation?

Richard Rosenfeld says yes, a positive one:

"A key mechanism linking inflation to crime is the price of stolen goods," he adds. "Price increases make cheap, stolen goods more attractive and therefore strengthen incentives for those who supply the underground markets with stolen goods. The reverse occurs when inflation is low."

Color me wrong, but I have a hard time buying the fact that today's too-stupid-to-wear-a-mask robbers and killers are really spending that much time thinking about the inflation rate of the economy. I can maybe see this as a factor for certain commodities during potential bubble formation (like Gold for example), but to say total / aggregated crime rates move with inflation seems quite a bit far-fetched to me. Especially, since inflation has been on the up-tick over the past year or so....