Bank robbery basics

Northwestern Financial Review, Nov 1-Nov 14, 2006

Takeover robbery - When one or more offenders armed with weapons take over a bank and maintain control, according to Ross Rice, spokesperson for the Chicago FBI.

Armed robbery - is robbery with a weapon (even a toy one), threatening the use of a weapon, or actual possession of a weapon. Despite the overall impression, between one-third and one-half of bank robberies actually invoke firearms. Firearms are by tar the weapon ot choice. However, actual violence and injury occurrences are very low - between 2 percent and 6 percent.

Robber characteristics - nearly 80 percent of robberies are committed by a single offender. Fifteen percent were committed by two offenders. "Whites account for between 35 and 45 percent of all offenders ... Black offenders are responsible for between 45 percent and 55 percent" between 1996 and 2000, according to the FBI special report. More than 95 percent of bank robbers are male.

Penalty for armed robbery - 20 years in prison. "This is really not a smart thing to do if you do a cost-risk analysis," Rice said. The "cameras employed by banks are stale-of-the-art portrait-quality photos."

Clearance rate with arrests for bank robberies - a special report dune by the FBI in 2002 notes bank robbery has a 57.7 percent clearance rate, second only to murder. Bank robbery accounts for only 2.4 percent of all robbery in the United States. The Chicago FBI's clearance rate is upwards of 70 percent currently.

Amounts stolen - from 1996 through 2000, about $470 million was stolen from banks (about $70 million per year). Only about 20 percent was recovered which seems to confirm resean h done in the 1980s that many rob banks tor immediate personal need such as to pay for an addiction. In Chicago, the current average "take" is less than $2,000.

Busiest day for robberies - Friday usually between 9-11 a.m. or between 3-6 p.m. However, robberies occur at all hours and the difference between days and limes is not really statistically significant, according to Thompson.