Why commit robbery

For instance, the National Crime Victimization Survey showed that street robbers attacked most victims on their way to or from work, school, shopping, or running errands. The risk of injury and death during an attack further substantiates the public's fear of robbery. Offenders physically attack approximately half of robbery victims, and about 20 percent require medical attention. The type of weapon used typically distinguishes robbery from robbery-murder.

Roughly two-thirds of robbery-murders involve guns, but offenders use guns in less than one-third of robberies. Understanding the factors that contribute to your community's street robbery problem will help you frame your own local analysis questions, determine effectiveness measures, recognize key intervention points, and select appropriate responses. Local analysis may reveal unique situations, not on this list, that you may need to address. You should base local analysis on the street robbery analysis triangle Figure 1.

This triangle is a modification of the widely used problem analysis triangle see www. It organizes basic factors that contribute to robbery problems. Though no single factor completely accounts for the street robbery problem, the interrelated dynamics among victims , locations , offenders, and routines all contribute to street robbery patterns.

Street robberies occur when motivated offenders encounter suitable victims in an environment that facilitates robbery. A street robbery problem emerges when victims repeatedly encounter offenders in the same area. In short, a combination of circumstances will lead to a robbery, not any single circumstance.

For example, a street robbery is likely to occur when an offender, pressed for cash, spots a drunken person leaving a bar alone, heading toward a poorly lit, isolated location. A pattern of robberies could occur if offenders notice drunken people taking similar routes after leaving the bar. Different types of routines can change offender, victim and location characteristics, thus altering robbery patterns e.

Depending on the specific details of a street robbery problem, the relative importance of each side of the triangle and routines will vary. Addressing any one element in Figure 1 might reduce a problem, but addressing more than one side will better ensure that the robbery problem will decline.

The sections below describe each of the four factors in more detail. Compared with commercial or other types of robberies, street robberies tend to be more opportunistic and occur in a more open and less predictable environment.

Though some often consider street robbery a crime of opportunity involving little to no planning, street robbers do engage in decision-making processes. The following sections describe three factors that influence a person's decision to commit street robbery, and the acronym CAP summarizes them. C ash needs. The immediate need for cash is a major reason why people rob.

For instance, 80 out of 81 St. Louis street robbers claimed their immediate need for cash was a primary reason for committing the crime.

If victims do not have cash on hand, robbers can take and sell other items to meet cash needs. A ttack methods. The ability to use certain attack methods in particular settings might also affect a person's decision to commit street robbery. Street robbers use four main attack methods: confrontations, cons, blitzes, and snatch-thefts.

For example, confrontations were most common in one U. These methods are not mutually exclusive and can change during the course of the robbery. Each attack method is described below. The offender demands property or possessions at the moment of contact with the victim. The offender will usually use verbal commands to gain compliance e. Violence might follow if the victim does not comply. The offender uses violence first to gain control over the victim i.

The actual robbery occurs after the offender immobilizes the victim. The offender uses a distraction to catch the victim off guard. For example, an offender might ask someone for the time or directions before attacking. Using a legitimate distraction enables the robber to gain contact with the victim without causing alarm. This tactic occurs very quickly.

No verbal communication occurs between the offender and the victim before the robbery. The offender typically grabs visible property e. This issue has important implications for problem analysis because crimes identified as "street thefts" are actually street robberies.

P lanning. Street robberies appear tactically simple and quickly completed, but they are seldom completely unplanned. Robbers learn which tactics work in what situations based on prior experience. So what might appear as an impulsive act could be based on a plan developed from prior experience. Immediate circumstances might also affect planning. For example, a street robber might plan target selection based on the availability of weapons and accomplices.

The idea is that offenders use basic planning to overcome some of the situational challenges of street robbery. Therefore, police could prevent street robbery by addressing certain situational factors.

This guide's response section addresses some of these opportunity-reducing strategies. Victim demographics are informative, but it is vital to understand how they relate to routine activities and risk. Finding that minorities have a heightened risk of street robbery in your community is helpful only as a first step. You still have to discover why. Perhaps the minorities are undocumented workers whom offenders rob because the victims often work in unfamiliar neighborhoods, carry cash and won't report the crime to the police.

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Market Your Law Firm. Lawyer Directory. Call us at 1 Robbery is almost always a felony, punishable by at least one year in prison, regardless of the value of the items taken. Most states punish aggravated robbery quite harshly, including armed robbery, carjacking,.

What Defines Robbery? What sets robbery apart from mere stealing theft is that the robber: takes something from the victim's "person or presence," and uses, or threatens to use, force or violence. While state law varies, the following may be considered using force or violence: using any physical force against the victim, such as striking or kicking snatching the property away threatening or coercing the victim, or placing the victim in fear of serious and immediate bodily injury.

Robbery Charges In many states, robbery is divided into categories such as first degree and second degree, or aggravated and simple , depending on the seriousness of the offense. It usually leads to assault or murder. The question is what causes people to commit robbery, and which criminology theory affectedly describes the pattern.

The theories that would explain criminals, and why they commit this particular crime are social process theories. The reason why these theories explain so well is that all human beings have different reasons for committing certain types of crimes.

Fear is an emotion that protects living beings from the threats in surroundings, and which has evolved to turn into an added complex.

There are certain fears that the most of human beings share. As an example fear of being victimised psychologically as well as physical forms by crimes. Every now and then these fears weird to the plain absurd. The world hear about lots of crime over Media as well as experience lots of low-level offences such as graffiti , Vandalism, being drunk in public places, throwing and smashing empty bottles , yelling on the street more or less every day.

By doing so, this leads them to commit crimes such as armed robbery. Individuals commit armed robbery for two main reasons: survival or greed.

Those who are in need of money come from a poor background. For example, an armed bank robber yells at the customers to get down on the floor, threatening to shoot them if they try to leave. Since they know they might be killed if they try to leave, they are being held against their will. The captive bank customers may be able to claim damages, and the bank robber may be charged with the crime of false imprisonment. Persistent thieves and hustlers tend to be drifters who seek to acquire money in any possible way.

They are often involved in burglary, shoplifting, and other forms of theft, as well as in robbery. Another category consists of narcotics addicts who support their habit in whole or in part through robberies.

While it is clear that many addicts are not involved in robbery, those who are tend to commit the offense repeatedly. Other offenders do not set out to commit a robbery but simply take advantage of passing opportunities.

Many street robberies and many robberies committed by youths fall into this opportunist category. Some persons who commit robberies seem more interested in violence than profit.