Section V: special reports

Special Report

Bank Robbery in the United States

Introduction

According to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, robbery is the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or superintendence of a person or someones by force or threat of force or violence and/or by means of putting the victim in fear. The focus of this inquiry bank robbery, is a subtype of robbery targeted at banks. Because of this simple body of force or the threat of force, bank robbery is highly feared among the population. (1)

a certain quantity of view robbery in the connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts of violence; others maintain that robbery trespassers come from a subculture of theft. (2) Sometimes it is difficult to separate the sum of two units The UCR Program classifies robbery as a crime against characteristic and includes robbery in its violent crime total.

A bank robbery is indicated when the crime is robbery and the location is a financial institution. UCR-National Instant-Based Reporting combination of parts to form a whole (NIBRS) standards state that the victims in a robbery can be either ones or entities, i.e., businesses, financial institutions, etc or the pair (3) In a bank robbery, the primary victim is the bank itself, on the other hand the teller being threatened or injured is also a victim.

A computation of UCR Summary data showed that a bank robbery occurr just below every 52 minutes in 2001 accounting for 24 percent of all robbery in the United States. (4) This exhibited a total loss of approximately $70 million. While this appear to bes like a large amount of currency taken, the average amount of currency taken in a bank robbery above the period 1996 through 2000 according to NIBRS data is les than $5000

The crime of robbery showed a clearance rate of single 24.9 percent in 2001. The clearance for bank robbery was 577 percent in 2001 (5) This is a relatively high clearance rate when compared with that of other Part I crimes. * sole murder, at 62.4 percent, has a higher percentage of crimes cleared through arrest.

Even with like a high clearance rate, bank robbery remains prevalent. Bank robbery has been the make subordinate of many studies. (6) Because of the number of incidents, the amount of standard of value taken, and the fear breeded in the public, bank robbery is a serious moot point in the United States. Dr Yoshio Akiyama of the FBI addressed this question in 1983 in the Crime Indicators a whole Fourth Semiannual Briefing on Crime. That investigation used a 10-year time series to exhibit the prevalence and characteristics of bank robbery incidents, a profile of delinquents and an analysis of the longitudinal dimensions of time from the incident until clearance.

The near study will update and stretch out parts of that earlier study

Objectives

The general objective of this application of mind is to examine three different criminal justice databases maintained through the FBI. Their similarities and differences are pointed without and discussed with the end of producing a fuller picture of bank robbery than that created when using solitary one of these databases. A further and no les important objective is to provide a certain number of assessment of the NIBRS bank robbery data by means of comparing it with the Bank Crime Statistics database, flat though the collection methods, the intention and content of these databases are different.

To address these objectives, a time series from the Bank Crime Statistics (BCS) mustered by the Violent Crimes/Fugitive Unit of the FBI, covering the period 1973 to 2001 was generated and compared to the time series for Summary UCR data and to NIBRS data. NIBRS data upon bank robbery incidents used for this analysis is for 1996-2000 Although Summary data have been bring togethered by the FBI since 1930 its comprehensiveness concerning bank robbery is limited. Therefore, single the crime counts and estimates from 1990 end 2001 were examined for comparison to BC data from the same period. ([dagger])

The close attention questions in this analysis are designed to compare and contrast the databases upon the subject of bank robbery as it is reported to the FBI and are divided into sum of two units areas, characteristics of the incident and characteristics of the offender(s)

Further, this close attention will discuss the general compatibility of the Summary UCR data, the historical BC database, and bank robbery incidents identified in the NIBRS. by the agency of using data from all three of these databases it will be possible to not absent a fuller picture of the crime of bank robbery in the United States and by what mode it is reported.

research Question 1--Characteristics of the Incident

The horizontal of analysis here is the incident itself. Variables that describe the incident, like as the number of bank robbery incidents by year, the state, the region, the time of day and day of the week, the violence--deaths, injuries, hostages taken--and the emblem of weapons used are addressed in question 1

research Question 2--Offenders

Question 2 be of importance tos the offender characteristics. What is the age, sex and race of the culprit (or offenders)? What is the average number of trespassers per incident? What is the previous bank robbery experience of offenders?