Bank Robbery - Prevention

Prevention

Banks have implemented modern security measures, like motion-sensing and high resolution color security cameras, time-locked heavy vault doors, silent alarms, exploding dye packs, bait money and locator devices. Some banks supplement this protection with armed or unarmed security guards.

Gone are the days when expert safe crackers could crack the code to a vault or safe. Today's biometric technology makes non-violent methods of gaining access nearly impossible. Modern vaults and safes are also reinforced to the point that the amount of explosives needed to blow them open would likely create unwanted attention and run the risk of harming the building to the point of collapse. By their very nature, even the most impregnable vault or safe eventually needs to be able to be opened and closed by someone. To circumvent vault and safe security features, robbers often kidnap the bank manager, but that is not always a successful workaround as banks have often removed the manager's ability to open the vault.

The police have new measures at their disposal to catch bank robbers, such as well-armed SWAT teams. Forensic identification techniques have also improved greatly; should a bank robber fire a gun, the police can trace the bullet to the exact firearm using ballistic fingerprinting. Martin Kemp, in a BBC documentary, once inquired on the effectiveness of an Uzi in a bank robbery, to which the firearms training instructor joked "that would be sixty-four pieces of evidence to convict you." The sawn-off shotgun, a common robbery weapon in United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand where handguns are difficult to obtain, are easily concealable but not particularly effective.

While it is likely but not certain that the first time someone robs a bank they will not be caught, it is highly likely that if they continue they will be caught. Few criminals are able to make a successful living out of bank robbery over the long run. Bank robberies are still fairly common and are indeed successful, although eventually many bank robbers are found and arrested. A report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation states that, among Category I serious crimes, the arrest rate for bank robbery in 2001 was second only to that of murder. Today most organized crime groups tend to make their money by other means, such as drug trafficking, gambling, loan sharking, identity theft, or online scamming and phishing.

A further factor making bank robbery unattractive for criminals in the United States is the severity with which it is prosecuted. Accounts at all U.S. banks are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, a corporation of the federal government, bringing bank robbery under federal jurisdiction and involving the FBI. United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines for bank robbery mandate long prison terms, which are usually further enhanced by the use or carrying of loaded firearms, prior criminal convictions, and the absence of parole from the federal prison system. As with any type of robbery, the fact that bank robbery is also inherently a violent crime typically causes corrections administrators to place imprisoned bank robbers in harsher high-security institutions.