Everyone wants to be a cyber criminal these days, as online theft has supplanted the straight-up bank robbery.
Everyone wants to be a cyber criminal these days, as online theft has supplanted the straight-up bank robbery.
A report in the Wall Street Journal sees bank robbery stats cut in half in the last decade. And the preliminary numbers from 2012 put holdups at 3,870, down from more than 5,000 a year earlier.
Of course, the decline is not just about trendiness. Numbers of robberies started to decrease in the 1990s when banks bolstered security, installing “bandit barriers”—bullet proof glass between the teller and customer. Tighter federal sentencing for those convicted of bank heists have also brought down the numbers.
While online thefts do result in more overall money lost than bank robberies, it comes with less physical violence. And less big-screen glamour.