Bank Robbery

Bank robberies are relatively uncommon: only about 2 of every 100 robberies are of a bank.1 Although violence is rare, employees and customers are at some risk of injury.† If nothing else, being victimized can be terrifying. In addition, bank robberies can invoke fear in the community at large, as most are well-covered by the media. And in fact, a distinctive bank robbery such as the fatal 1998 shoot-out between police and two bank robbers armed with assault weapons in Los Angeles can influence public images of crime for many years.

Injuries occur in about 2 percent of bank robberies in the United State s and in 6 percent of robberies in Australia (Maguire and Pastore, 1997; Pastore and Maguire, 2005; Borzycki, 2003). A death occurs in about 30 percent of U.S. bank robberies (Pastore and Maguire, 2005).

Because of the...