An Analysis of the Decision-making Practices of Armed Robbers

This paper is based on a study of commercial armed robbery in London, UK, involving the analysis of over 1,000 police reports and interviews with 88 incarcerated armed robbers. While official criminal statistics document that over three-quarters of armed robberies in Britain involve real firearms, findings suggested that only around one-third actually do. Robbers rarely reported the availability of guns to be an importantJ"actor in their choice of weapon. Together, this implies that simply reducing the availability of real firearms may not be the most effective preventive strategy. Offenders made reasonably accurate predictions with regard to the financial benefits of the crime. Also, their analyses of the potential costs involved in committing armed robbery were found to be neither irrational nor grounded in ignorance of the likely outcome. Furthermore, robbers appeared to tailor their modus operandi with a view to both maximizing the potential financial rewards and reducing the likely risks involved in the crime. Target hardening and other situational Address correspondence to: Shona Morrison, Office of Strategic Crime Assessments, Locked Bag 23, Queen Victoria Terrace, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia. 160 Shona A. Morrison and Ian O'Donnell crime prevention strategies have uses beyond their primary prevention capabilities. For instance, they may aid in the subsequent detection of offenders. This, in addition to further study on the dynamics of robbers' motivations, may lead to an effective broad based approach to the prevention of commercial armed robbery.