Slashdot Mirror
Bank Robbing a Terrible Business, Statistically
isoloisti writes "Three UK economists got access to national data on bank robberies. The conclusion is that robbing banks pays, but not very much. Average take is about $19k per person per robbery. But, there's a 20% chance of being caught per raid. To make an average income, a robber needs to do two jobs per year, and has greater than 50% chance to be in the slammer after 2 years."
Banking, on the other hand...
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
I RTFA but I didn't see any reference to the general intelligence of the robbers. From what I've always understood, intelligent bank robbers are generally not caught while those who just wandering into a bank with a paper sank and a finger gun end up getting busted quickly. You know, because they make it obvious who they are.
The best way to rob a bank is to own one. And it's only gotten better for the robber barons over the past 30 years.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Yep. I recall a TV interview with I believe an ex-FBI agent discussing the "does crime pay?" topic. His answer was short and simple. "If you're going to do it, do it once and do it big." The smart criminals that do one and only one big job that sets them for life or years are rarely caught. It's the smaller-time ones that keep going back for more that end up getting caught.
Even at 20% odds, it probably makes sense. If you have a 80% chance of being set for life, vs a 20% chance of being locked up for a few years, it's easy to see where those with an obviously poor future consider crime.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Not if you're stealing a red stapler.
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Know what you are doing.
In the US there are very few large scale organizations that are not businesses, and violence is bad for business; there is not that much of it. A good example of this kidnapping, extortion, protection rackets, are usually small-scale. There are other occupations that are safer and easier to gouge people out of money so it never reaches the scales that it does like in Mexico.
If the poverty line gets low enough combined with severe cuts in local services, it would not surprise me to see this trend be reversed.
Read How to rob a bank: A social engineering walkthrough, the more modern way. (Maybe this was on slashdot?)
I feel certain all persons considering robbing banks will study this statistical data and after due and sober consideration, be dissuaded from such high-risk, low-reward enterprise.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Some generations hence, people will tell stories to children where the mean, greedy third little pig is the villain because he did not build houses for the other two little pigs and the wolf.
I think Ayn Rand already wrote that fairy tale. The difference was that when she tried it, it was over 1,000 pages long.
Breakfast served all day!
Yep, robbing a bank doesn't get you much.
If you want cash, the money is in an end-of-day armored car robbery. There's a high risk, and a good chance you're going to have to kill a few people, but the payoff can be millions. You're going to need a lot of surveillance time to find the routes, a biggish truck with a Faraday cage in case there's any tracking devices (and the same thing in your warehouse when you unload), and a good way to launder large quantities of cash. Wouldn't hurt to have several good radio jammers positioned, both for the armored car frequencies and the police frequencies, and that won't jam whatever you're using to talk to your partners. Might even have a few timed charges on the local police antenna towers. Probably need a crew of 4-5, at least 2 to deal with the driver and guard, one getaway driver and at least one surveillance guy. Remember, they're probably wearing body armor, so go for the headshot or if you're a great shot and don't want to kill, take out their shooting arm and legs, in that order.
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
So the question is bank robbery good for unskilled labor. Lets say that you pull five jobs in a year, get convicted for the last one, and get five years in prison. The robber is in jail, room and board taken care of, but the family might have 80K in unreported funds. If they are somewhat smart, they will get government assistance as well as the 13K a year average. OTOH, if the robber is less responsible they have had a lifestyle for a year that few unskilled people can have. And only worked a few weeks at most.
Sure for those of us with jobs and skills it seems a bit silly, but there a lot of people for whom 20K seems like a fortune. This is why I think that such analysis are not very useful. It does not speak to the basic root fo the crime.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
ATM machines mean most of the money is locked away in safes - and spread out over many branches, convenience stores, etc.
This is an ATM.
This is an ATM machine!
So you won't find any money inside of an ATM machine. ATM machines only build ATMs, so they are full of ATM parts. If you are after money, you should more likely go after the ATM itself.
And knowing is half of the battle!
I don't see anywhere to type in my PIN number on that ATM machine. Hell, I don't even see an LCD Display, so where are my menus? Terrible HMI interface.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
One raid, 20% change of getting caught, you need two raids a year, and that increases changes to over 50%, WTF!?
TFA claims that doing two raids a year gives you a greater than 50% chance of getting caught within 2 years (i.e., 4 raids). Let's check the math...
After 1 raid you have a 100% - 20% = 80% chance of eluding capture.
After 2 raids, it's 80% ^ 2 = 64%
After 3 raids, it's 80% ^ 3 = 51.2%
After 4 raids, it's 80% ^ 4 = 40.96%
100% - 40.96% chance of not getting caught = 59.04% chance of getting caught, which is in fact over 50%.
850 pages of railroad references, 100 pages of John galt repeating the same idea over the radio using all the biggest words Rand could come up with, and 50 pages of Dagny getting banged by Hank, Francisco, or good old Johnny. The movie version would be 10 minutes of moderate porn, but you'd have to get through 90 minutes of the cable guy stompin around the living room first.
I was an A is A objectivist for a while; I enjoyed Atlas Shrugged the first time around. When I started seeing some personal success, I saw that hard work does not always equal success; many of the brightest and talented hard workers I knew got fucked, not rewarded, and it's often a crapshoot or who you know more than talent and hard work. You get up and try again if you're good at it and enjoy what you do, so that part is true, but talent doesn't rise simply because it's talented. Objectivism is an ideal, just like sharing the communist wealth means everybody gets a fair shake is an ideal.
It was a nice life lesson; I know now that anybody advocating the extreme is pushing an ideal on you, not a true way to live your life. Hard work, living a happy life, and helping others when you are both able and willing to do so is the way to go; and if you get some sort of crazy good benefits offered to you along the way, pounce like a puma.
I'd argue that the quality of life for bank robber is FAR better than the average office drone. They only have to work a few hours a year for their pay check...
The fact that hard work and talent often don't equal success on the first try doesn't mean they don't equal success. It just means that there's a large element of randomness in play at all times, and even hard work and talent don't necessarily give you high odds of success in any one endeavor. However, hard work and talent do tilt the odds in your favor, so -- except for people who get extraordinarily unlucky -- hard work, talent and persistence do equal success. On balance, I'd say that persistence is the most important of those traits, followed by hard work, with talent coming in a distant third. Which isn't to say talent isn't valuable -- in many cases it's essential. But it's almost never enough.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You can make lotsa money at fast food joints, don't be the one flipping burgers (be the franchise owner or up)
You can make lotsa money at gas stations, don't be the one behind the counter (be an executive in one of their high rise offices)
You can make lotsa money stealing cash, don't be the one handling the cash (be one of them Wall St businessmen that lie, cheat, and steal from people everyday).
mfwright@batnet.com