Nice arrest Saturday morning by Officer Cameron Cleland, who spotted the suspect vehicle across town who earlier had been involved in the robbery of the Subway sandwich shop in the Piedmont Shopping Center, right across the street from Fire Station 7.
Does holding up a fast food shop at 8:00 AM on a Saturday sound like a good idea? I think not. For that matter, stick-ups at retail businesses generally are a pretty poor plan for a person pondering professional pilfering. Why? There's just not much cash, anymore. To the the extent that retail holdups have always been high- risk, low-reward affairs, the declining use of cash has made the risk-reward ratio even less favorable.
Next time your in line at Subway, Starbucks, Sonic, Schlotsky's, or Samuri Sam's, note how many of your fellow customers are paying with cash, as compared to debit and credit cards. Not very many. Cash has gone the way of cursive. I took a four day trip to Vancouver, BC last fall with six bucks in my pocket--just in case I needed to tip a doorman. I came home with the same six bucks, having taxied about town, enjoyed several nice meals, and engaged in a bit of shopping with my lovely wife. Plastic was perfectly convenient for everything, and I opened all the doors without assistance.
I calculated the average take in robberies in 2013 at about 1/4th the average ten years ago in 2004. Robbery was always a poor choice for the aspiring criminal. Now, with the demise of cash, it's even more stupid.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
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10 comments:
I agree with what you say about the use of cash and the high-risk/low-take regarding robberies. It seems odd, though, if the take truly is low, that for some reason it always seems to be a secret. It's always, "An undisclosed amount of cash...". I can see the possibility of compromising an ongoing investigation with premature release of that information, or even the privacy rights of the victims. But, why not tell us what you calculated as the average take over a time period? I can't imagine it would compromise anything, and maybe some of these wannabe robbers would realize how little they stand to gain in such an endeavor
Even crazier are the ones who steal a case of beer and some cigarettes. That's planning for a great future, isn't it? I see a lot of stolen credit cards on Crimestoppers, too, which seems to be the next big trend.Guess I'm getting old, but it seems like there's more crime all the time. I just remind myself that reporting is better, along with the fact that Lincoln has more than doubled in size since I first moved here.
Per your own stats quoted on 12/31/2013, a non-bank business robber has an 80% chance of not being caught. Store policy is generally total compliance, employees are usually solo (especially at the start of the day), primarily female (which reduces the likelihood of them fighting or grappling with a male robber), and if what's in the bank bag for opening cash is what it was 20 years ago (adjusted up for inflation), then we begin to see why these places get hit.
I understand that one purpose of posts like yours today is to dissuade potential robbers from robbing these places, so skip or post this reply as you see fit.
Anon @ 11:10
I doubt too many robbers or potential robbers read the Director's Desk. Most of them probably can't read anything. That's why I would encourage publicizing the stupidity of committing robbery for such a small reward. Put it on the news, radio and television for those who can't read, so it might actually help deter the wannabes. Probably a lot of them think there's gold in them thar tills.
My guess is the majority of people who rob stores are looking for enough to get their next drug fix and the majority of them get at least that much so the amounts are not disclosed. If they know they can get enough for a fix at most robberies, the stats might actually go up.
"Most of them probably can't read anything"
It's possible that you actually believe that, but I doubt it.
Stupid or not, it's up significantly. Biz robberies all get reported, unlike a lot of the other crimes that are supposedly down. How much of that stat reduction is due to victims just shrugging and not reporting the crime is something we can't know for certain.
4:13,
Your theory doesn't work: the trend on business robberies is flat over the last 20 years. The increase in total robberies is being driven by non-business robberies. As I have often noted, the plurality of these are drug related.
In addition, the NCVS (National Criminal Vicitimization Survey) tracks the FBI Uniform Crime Report, demonstrating the same downturn in crime since the early 1990s. The UCR data is exclusively crime reported to the police. The NCVS, on the other hand, captures data about both incidents reported to the police, and crimes that were not reported to the police.
Stupid or not, here's another one.
The wildest thing to digest about this story is you took $6 with you and didn't even tip a single doorman!
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