The Greatest Threat: RobberyThe losses experienced by financial institutions due to robbery while extensive, are far below those caused by fraud. The greater danger that robbery poses is the potential loss of life or injury to people. Other negative effects include the potential shrinkage of business, employee turnover and loss of customers.
While the FBI reports that major crime trends are fairly stagnant, financial institutions are reporting a continuing increase in the frequency of robberies. In October, 2002 the FBI released its annual Uniform Crime Report. In it, it was reported that robberies in 2001 for all categories rose by 3.7% over 2000, the first increase in more than a decade. More disturbing than that, the report cited that bank robberies were up by 19.4% over the previous year to a record 10,246. Bank robberies also have the highest loss per incident at $4,587, higher than all other types of robberies.
The demographics of bank robbery are shifting as well, out of the big cities and into rural America. While several large cities reported a drop in the number of bank robberies, the FBI report cited that cities with less than 10,000 inhabitants experienced the greatest increase in bank robbery incidents.
The style and modus operandi of bank robbers varies widely. There are even fads among robbers, as evidenced by the string of crimes several years back that involved the use of gorilla masks and Nixon masks. There are however prevailing patterns that most bank robberies tend to adhere to.
- Robbers typically like to be unobtrusive, drawing as little attention to themselves as possible.
- Robbers usually wear some type of subtle disguise such as a hat, hooded sweatshirt, sunglasses or wig. They seek to remain anonymous and unidentifiable.
- Robbers frequently do not display a weapon, preferring to simply hand an employee a note with their demands.
- Robberies are usually planned in advance and not random. Robbers have likely visited the target institution several times to assess the security measures that are in place.
- Robbers do not distinguish between different types of financial institutions. When robbers who have been apprehended are interviewed, most were unable to tell if they had robbed a bank, credit union or savings and loan institution.
In 2001, the Credit
Union National Association (CUNA) release the results of a survey conducted by News
Now regarding credit unions and their experience with robbery. In the survey results
it was revealed that of those institutions that had experienced a robbery, more than
36% did nothing to upgrade their security measures.
Thankfully more than 63% of those institutions who had experienced a robbery did take corrective actions. Of all of the changes that were made, institutions participating in the survey cited that installation and upgrading of the facility’s CCTV surveillance system was the number one most effective improvement that was made towards reducing the likelihood of another robbery incident.
