Is it me, or are the criminals getting better looking?

A sure sign of a suffering economy: more attractive criminals.

Used to be you’d see those faces staring out at you from the signs in the post office and you could see why they’d turned to a life of crime. With their crusty, wizened visages, what else were these people going to go into? You could see them walking into a career councilor and being immediately steered toward larceny.

But lately — as evidenced by the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot Ledger’s excellent “Mass Most Wanted” series — more and more of them are looking young, happy and well-adjusted. Did these people really need to break the law? It looks like they’d do fine as yoga instructors or baristas.

But with those jobs scarce these days, I guess they’re going in to pickpocketing and identity theft, not to mention bank robbing. At least some of them are turning themselves in after turning up in the Patriot Ledger — and after they get out of the can, they can always try modeling.