This article published in the Los Angeles Times on April 18th discusses recent trends in bank robberies in Southern California. According to FBI data, bank robberies are rising “during these tough economic times,” while they had been declining in the 90’s.
There are several interesting points made by this article. First, the article does not mention anything about the amount of money that is stolen, or retrieved when the robbers are caught. I thought this is interesting because we learned in class that the FBI is notably inaccurate at times, and discussing bank robberies without giving actual information on how much has been stolen is a bit odd. Also as we learned in class, typically in bank robberies very little money is actually stolen, usually with an average of less than five thousand dollars (Lecture 3/25). This may be a reason why the author of the article didn’t focus on the actual money stolen, but rather the trend an increase of robberies.
Secondly, the article discussed several well-known robbers who were caught because of surveillance tapes, and because these bank robbers were robbing at high rates, so they left quite a trail of evidence. Some thief’s they noted were the “salt and pepper bandit,” who robbed at a rate of every other day and the “bullheaded bandit,” who robbed four banks in one day. These incidents are consistent which what we learned in class, that bank robbers have poor odds for success and on average, 85% are caught by police. These thieves also play into the stereotype that bank robbers are not the smartest of robbers because they offend at such high rates in the same area, and are almost always caught. Especially for a crime with a stiff sentence of about twenty-five years average prison sentence, and for a generally low monetary gain (Lecture 3/25). The article states, “these crimes are fueled by some sort of dependency such as addiction to gambling or drugs.” This desperate need for money is probably why bank robberies continue, even though they are mostly unsuccessful.
The article also discussed the involvement of gangs and bank robberies. According to the article “gangs, which were predominantly behind the rise in bank robberies in the late 1980’s and 1990’s have not been as active over the last five years.”
According to the Uniform Crime Reports, crime of all kind has been declining since the 90’s. Although author john M Hagedorn, of A world of Gangs, sheds light on the fact that gang criminality is on the rise, it is interesting that gangs involvement in bank robberies has decreased, but bank robberies overall have increased.
To view the whole article click here: #mce_temp_url#