In these troubled economic times, we all have to make sacrifices, even those who will be protecting us from half-starved mobs during the coming economic and social meltdown. Why pay the wages of one human cop, a cash-strapped police chief might wonder, when, for the same money, you could afford hundreds of life-size cardboard ones?

Figures released by the British police show that 13 forces have spent around $28,000 on cardboard cut-out officers to "patrol" stores and other public spaces. The theory is that the six-foot likenesses will remind potential criminals "they are being watched" as they contemplate pocketing some merchandise at a five-finger discount.

Reports of the scheme's successes thus far are mixed. An early trial in the center of the English town of Belper was hailed as a crime-reduction triumph, up to a point. That point being when a thief with a healthy sense of irony made off with the cardboard cop. Click here for a photo of the cardboard cop on the job.