(AP) — Given the ever-growing use of debit and credit cards for even casual purchases, some crime pays less than it used to in Lincoln.

Lincoln Public Safety Director Tom Casady said that crooks last year got about a quarter as much cash as they got a decade ago when robbing Lincoln retailers.

Casady, the city’s former police chief, says that because customers are whipping out cards instead of cash so often, businesses don’t have as much money on hand nowadays.

He says “cash has gone the way of cursive.”