This guide begins by describing the problem of bank robbery and reviewing the factors that increase its risks. It then identifies a series of questions to help you analyze your local bank robbery problem. Finally, it reviews responses to the problem of bank robbery as identified through research and police practice.

Bank robbery is but one aspect of a larger set of problems related to robbery and to financial crimes involving banks. This guide is limited to addressing the particular harms created by bank robbery. Related problems not directly addressed in this guide include:

• robberies of financial couriers, including armored carriers
• burglary, larceny, and extortion of banks
• bank fraud, including check and credit card fraud
• insider crimes, such as embezzlement
• robberies at automated teller machines
• other types of commercial robbery.

Each of these problems requires separate analysis. Several are covered in other guides in this series, all of which are listed at the end of this article. For the most up-to-date listing, see www.popcenter.org.

A bank is a specific type of financial institution but the term is widely used to refer to all financial institutions, including banks, savings and loans, and credit unions. In the United States, the term primarily refers to financial institutions with deposits that are federally insured and that fall under the federal Bank Protection Act. This guide is focused on individual retail bank branches at different locations while the term bank refers to the financial corporation that operates the branches. Most bank robberies are robberies of bank branches.

This guide is not about investigating bank robberies. Neither does it cover serial bank robberies—that is, bank robberies that are committed by the same offender or offenders over a period of time—because patterns related to a single offender are not generally consistent with the problems and solutions described in this guide.

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Problem-Oriented Guides for Police
Problem-Specific Guides Series. No. 48
By Deborah Lamm Weisel

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
www.cops.usdoj.gov
ISBN: 1-932582-78-9

CONTENTS
About the Problem-Specific Guides Series .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Acknowledgments .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
The Problem of Bank Robbery .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What this Guide Covers .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Trends in Bank Robbery .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Factors Contributing to Bank Robbery.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Increased Opportunity .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Lucrative Rewards .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Low Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Bank Security Practices .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Types of Bank Robbers .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Escape Routes in Target Selection .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Robbery Risk and Prior Victimization.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Temporal Patterns of Bank Robbery .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Understanding Your Local Problem .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Stakeholders .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Asking the Right Questions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Incidents .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Potential Bank Victims .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Bank Victims .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Individual Victims .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Offenders .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Measuring Your Effectiveness .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Responses to the Problem of Bank Robbery .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
General Requirements for an Effective Strategy .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Specific Responses to Bank Robberies .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Reducing Rewards to Robbers .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Increasing Perceptions of Risk .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Increasing Risk of Apprehension .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Increasing Difficulty of Offending .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Responses with Limited Effectiveness .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Appendix: Summary of Responses to Bank Robbery .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Endnotes .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
About the Author .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Recommended Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Other Problem-Oriented Guides for Police .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

About the Author
Deborah Lamm Weisel

Deborah Lamm Weisel is an assistant research professor and the director of police research in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at North Carolina State University.

Her portfolio includes research on police responses to crime problems such as gangs, street drugs and graffiti, as well as community policing, safety and security in public housing, and repeat victimization from burglary and robbery. Her work has been published in Justice Quarterly, Public Management, the NIJ Journal, and the American Journal of Police.

She holds a doctorate in political science/public policy analysis from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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