The Great Depression was the heyday of bank robbers like John Dillinger, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Baby Face” Nelson and Bonnie and Clyde. The Great Recession hasn’t produced a similar group of outlaws.
FBI statistics show that the region is on pace to record a drop in bank robberies for the second year in a row. And the number of bank heists reported in the District, Maryland and Virginia remains significantly below totals reported in the mid-2000s.
| By the numbers |
| The total number of bank robberies reported in D.C., Maryland and Virginia: |
| 2011 (first half): 121 |
| 2010: 280 |
| 2009: 304 |
| 2008: 287 |
| 2007: 285 |
| 2006: 462 |
| 2005: 400 |
| 2004: 485 |
| Source: FBI |
For the first half of 2011, a total of 121 bank robberies — seven in the District and 57 each in Maryland and Virginia — were reported in the region, putting the area on track to come in well below 2010’s full-year total of 280 robberies. That was a drop from 304 in 2009.
And those numbers are steep declines from the 462 heists reported in 2006, 400 recorded in 2005 and 485 reported in 2004.
“The conventional wisdom used to be that bank robbery rates mirrored economic trends,” said John Hall, spokesman for the American Bankers Association. He said bank heists jumped in the recessions of the early 1990s and 2000s.
“That’s not happening with this recession,” Hall said
He said more effective law enforcement techniques and bank security measures have kept the number of robberies low.
Hall said those measures include sophisticated surveillance camera and alarm systems and an increase in the use of bait money.
And robbing banks isn’t a multimillion-dollar business, officials say. One serial bank robber in the District, for instance, netted just $21,000 from 11 heists, according to court records.
“Part of this may be that criminals have learned that, holding up a bank, you don’t get a really big take,” Hall said.
Still, several men have tried to beat the odds and rob strings of banks in the Washington region in the past year. A man was charged in August in a string of Arlington County robberies. Another was charged in September with seven Montgomery County robberies, and is suspected in others.
FBI spokeswoman Lindsay Godwin said those serial heists raised the numbers for certain jurisdictions, but didn’t have a major effect on the regional total. And such serial bandits, she said, often end up getting caught.
“Each time they enter a bank and are caught on bank surveillance … gives us more information to go on,” she said.
