Robbing a bank can pay, but usually not enough
The notorious John Dillinger was once asked what his line of work was. He purportedly replied: “I rob banks for a living. What do you do?” Another Depression-era robber was Willie Sutton, who, when asked why he robbed banks is said to have answered, “Because that’s where the money is.” So when a man strolled into Zions Bank in Pleasant Grove on Friday, demanded money, and then skedaddled on foot, I wanted to know more and looked up some data from the Center for Problem Oriented Policing.
How likely is it that an ordinary bank robber will get away with the crime? Very, as it turns out. Especially if this was his first heist, and if he doesn’t do something stupid, and if he doesn’t do it again. Bank tellers are unarmed and trained to be compliant, and two-thirds of bank robberies are completed in three minutes or less. The risk of arrest is initially high, but the trail goes cold fast, absent some factor that gives police a lead — like a license plate or a monogrammed shirt (yes, some robbers are really that dumb).
In the U.S., the average bank robbery nets about $4,000, but averages are misleading. Officials tend to suppress the really big numbers so as not to encourage more robberies. In Dade County, Fla., for example, 10 percent of robbers stole more than $10,000. The most successful robbery netted $60,000. In Chicago, a single heist in 2004 yielded more than $225,000.
Unlike the Great Depression, weapons today are uncommon in bank robberies. Up to 72 percent of bank robbers are unarmed and don’t even threaten violence, which lowers the harshness of a possible sentence if caught and convicted. Only 5 percent of bank robbers are arrested at the scene and one-third of robberies are solved the same day. Overall, only 60 percent of bank robberies are ever solved.
All this is just to suggest that if you are thinking about robbing a bank (and who hasn’t?), you might want to consider whether a 40 percent chance of getting 10-20 years behind bars is really worth a few thousand bucks.