{"id":5822,"date":"2016-08-11T13:22:39","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T18:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=5822"},"modified":"2016-09-14T09:44:06","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T14:44:06","slug":"the-feminization-of-bank-robberies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2016\/08\/11\/the-feminization-of-bank-robberies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Feminization of Bank Robberies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by Henry Burrows, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A masked figure enters the bank, pulls out a gun and screams, \u201cEveryone on the\u00a0ground!\u201d The tellers frantically scoop cash into a sack as the robber holds them at\u00a0gunpoint, roaring instructions through a black ski mask while sirens blare in the distance. This is a scene most of us know well, as it is depicted in almost every\u00a0cheesy heist flick ever made.<\/p>\n

Now, here\u2019s a question: as you played out this scene in your head, was the bank robber a man or a woman?<\/p>\n

<\/div> Chances are, you were thinking of a male bank robber. But this popular stereotype might be changing. An article<\/a> in The Orlando Sentinel<\/em>\u00a0reports that the latest FBI Statistics<\/a> show a surge in bank robberies committed by females. In 2005, about 6% of bank robberies were committed by women, but by 2015\u00a0that number had risen to 7.5%, representing a quarter increase in the number of female\u00a0bank robbers. In the article, sociologists\u00a0Darrell Steffensmeier<\/a> and Rosemary Erickson<\/a> explain how changes in strategy\u00a0and motivation might contribute to the increased participation of women in bank robberies.\u00a0\u00a0Women have come to represent a disproportionate percentage of the world’s poor, which means\u00a0women have started to resort to crimes that were once committed mostly by men as they struggle to make ends meet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s bank robbers don\u2019t always run in and cause a spectacle; they often blend in with\u00a0other customers at the bank, standing in line or filing paperwork. The infamous “gun-slinger” bank\u00a0robbery is becoming less common, and instead of using a firearm, more and more bank\u00a0robbers quietly pass a note to a teller with their demands. Erickson explains this shift in strategy is in large part to the increased number of women committing these crimes, as\u00a0women are less likely to commit violent crimes than are men.<\/p>\n

Steffensmeier and Erickson point to the “feminization of poverty” as a major driver of this gender shift in bank robberies. Women have come to represent a disproportionate percentage of the world’s poor, and combined with a\u00a0rise in single motherhood and homelessness among women, women have started to resort to crimes that were once committed mostly by men as they struggle to make ends meet. If the pattern observed in the data\u00a0becomes a trend, we might be seeing more women taking charge of robberies and other\u00a0crimes\u2014and you can take that to the bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A masked figure enters the bank, pulls out a gun and screams, \u201cEveryone on the\u00a0ground!\u201d The tellers frantically scoop cash into a sack as the robber holds them at\u00a0gunpoint, roaring instructions through a black ski mask while sirens blare in the distance. This is a scene most of us know well, as it is depicted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,55,13],"tags":[39116,39114,40335],"class_list":["post-5822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-gender","category-inequality","tag-crime","tag-gender","tag-robbery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5822"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5837,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5822\/revisions\/5837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}