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* Gun crime*
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Dec 30th 2003 From The Economist print edition
*The Americanisation of armed robbery*
"Standards are down," asserts Terry Smith, who carried out a string of
security van robberies in 1980s London. "Most robbers now get caught
up in drugs, and they don't plan properly. The professionalism has gone."
Old crooks nearly always resent upstarts, but those who used to make a
living out of armed robbery have particular reason to be bitter.
Tracking devices, hidden cameras and improvements in forensic science
have hardened banks, vans and other traditionally lucrative targets so
much that pulling on a balaclava scarcely seems worthwhile. This year,
England and Wales saw just 250 bank and building society heists--down
from 1,400 in 1991. These days, most armed robberies take place on the
street (where stick-ups have more than doubled in the past four years)
and in shops (up 26% in 2003).
In this new environment, old tools and techniques are of little use.
Sawn-off shotguns are handy for robbing banks, mostly for reasons of
presentation: they make a terrific noise when fired at the ceiling or
floor, and are menacing enough to project a threat through
bullet-proof glass. They are less useful for robbing today's "soft"
targets, though, so they have mostly been discarded. Sawn-off shotguns
were used in just 201 robberies last year--a third the figure of a
decade ago--while almost 3,841 jobs were done with handguns.
Thomas