Armed robbery in Australia : 2004 National Armed Robbery Monitoring Program annual report

Maria Borzycki
ISBN 1 921185 03 1 ; ISSN 1326-6004
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2006
(Research and public policy series, no. 69)

1. Introduction

• Background
• Definitions
• Data collection
• Report format

Background

Armed robbery is both a property crime and a crime of violence. The threat or actual violence associated with armed robbery can have long-term effects on victims. Endeavours to more fully understand the nature of this crime, such as developing a detailed typology of modi operandi, may assist potential victims to develop strategies for minimising their risk of attack. Data collection for the National Armed Robbery Monitoring Program (NARMP) began in 2003, following a commitment from police services in all Australian states and territories to provide information that would permit the detailed, national-level exploration of armed robbery (see Mouzos & Borzycki 2003 regarding the establishment of the NARMP). The program was established to:

• monitor trends in armed robbery, specifically trends in weapon use
• identify changes in trends
• provide insight into the factors underpinning these trends.

This report details findings from analyses of the second year of data collection involving all armed robberies reported from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2004. This report and future publications based on the NARMP will make use of additional information to that employed in the 2003 annual report (Borzycki, Sakurai & Mouzos 2004) because jurisdictions now compile and forward additional data, where available, for inclusion in the NARMP. States and territories agreed to this expansion of the NARMP following consultation with relevant statistical staff in a roundtable discussion in September 2004 and in follow-up correspondence.

The technical appendix outlines the information analysed for this report. It also describes the procedure employed in the compilation of NARMP.

Definitions

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), robbery involves:

...the unlawful taking of property, with intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property, from the immediate possession of a person, or an organisation, or control, custody or care of a person, accompanied by the use, and/or threatened use of immediate force or violence. Robbery victims can therefore be persons or organisations. (ABS 2005: 42)

In compiling recorded crime statistics, the ABS further differentiates between armed robbery (involving a weapon) and unarmed robbery (no weapon used).

Actual offences which can be classified as armed robbery differ between Australian jurisdictions because of differing criminal codes. The coding scheme employed by the ABS, the Australian standard offence classification (ASOC: ABS 1997), allows varying offences to be grouped into categories. Those categories of relevance to the NARMP are aggravated robbery, non-aggravated robbery, and robbery not further defined. Generally, victim records were included in the NARMP if actual offences were subsumed by any of these categories and some form of weapon use was also recorded, although there were some exceptions. Victim records were excluded if offences were classified as:

• aggravated robbery but weapon information showed no weapon use or not applicable (the use of a weapon in the commission of a robbery is considered one, although not the only, aggravating circumstance, hence all offences involving weapons could technically be considered 'aggravated').
• robbery not further defined or non-aggravated robbery, recording no weapon use, or where weapon information was not supplied or was annotated as missing (a minority of victim records classified as non-aggravated robbery or robbery not further defined also recorded use of a weapon, and these were retained in analyses).

Weapon use is central to establishing which offences are included in the NARMP. For the purposes of the NARMP, a weapon is defined in accordance with the ABS,

...as any object used to cause injury or fear of injury. It also includes imitation weapons and implied weapons (e.g. where a weapon is not seen by the victim but the offender claims to possess one). Parts of the body such as fists or feet are not included. (ABS 2005: 42)

Also consistent with the ABS, a robbery victim

...may be either an individual person or an organisation. Where the robbery involves an organisation or business, the element of property ownership is the key to determining the number and type of robbery victims. If the robbery only involves property belonging to an organisation, then one victim (i.e. the organisation) is counted regardless of the number of employees from which the property is taken. However, if robbery of an organisation also involves personal property in an employee's custody, then both the organisation and employee(s) are counted as victims. (ABS 2005: 42)

A person traumatised by or witness to a robbery whose property is not targeted, although a victim in the broader, common sense use of the term, is not a victim for the purposes of the NARMP. In addition, the term victim is used throughout this report to refer to the person(s) or organisation(s) victimised in an alleged armed robbery, regardless of whether related offences were later proven. Similarly, the terms offender and armed robber have been used interchangeably throughout this report to refer to alleged perpetrators of armed robbery offences, even if those individuals have not been convicted of those offences.

Data collection

Like the 2003 annual report, this report examines the three aspects of armed robbery: the victim, the incident itself, and the offender, with a particular focus upon the weapons used in the crime. The NARMP was initially established as a victim-based dataset. That is, each record within the dataset referred to a single victim of an armed robbery. Because armed robbery can involve multiple victims, a single armed robbery incident can give rise to multiple victim records. For instance, an armed robbery of a service station may involve the theft of property belonging to the service station (an organisation), plus personal property stolen from an employee and a customer (both individuals). This single robbery would result in three victims in the NARMP dataset.

As noted, an important variable in the collection is weapon type, and a consequence of the victim-based format is that the weapon(s) employed in a single armed robbery will be counted multiple times if there are multiple victims. In this example, a handgun employed by the offender would be recorded three times in the dataset. A more accurate picture of the number of weapons employed would arise from an incident-based dataset. This type of format for data collection treats each armed robbery incident as a single record. Using the above example, the service station robbery would result in a single record, involving the use of a single handgun and resulting in three victims.

Additional detail was collected for 2004 data, including greater detail specified for existing variables (e.g. providing raw information, rather than pre-coded categories, about weapons employed and incident location). In some instances, jurisdictions were able to supply additional variables. Most noteworthy of these was an incident identifier - a unique code allocated to incidents that permits victim records to be linked and viewed as a single incident.

One factor affecting the degree with which NARMP data can be seen as reflecting all armed robberies reported to police in 2004 concerns missing data, and should be considered by the reader from the outset. Not all records contain data on all variables. Some analyses employ only records for which valid data on relevant variables were available, resulting in different total numbers from which proportions and summary statistics have been calculated. All statements regarding findings, therefore, are based on the total number of valid cases examined for that analysis, and not necessarily on all records. Limitations associated with the dataset are discussed in greater detail throughout the report and in the technical appendix.

Report format

The following analyses of the 2004 NARMP dataset begin with a discussion of armed robbery victims, to permit broad-brush comparisons with victim-based data presented in the 2003 annual report. This is followed by an examination of aspects of armed robbery incidents, and of those offenders who perpetrate armed robberies. Unlike the earlier report, the current work utilised incident-based analyses when examining incidents and offenders in detail.

After a discussion of victims, incidents and the offenders involved in those incidents, armed robbery occurring in licensed premises is explored in detail. This in-depth exploration of the armed robbery of licensed premises is in response to media reports in recent years which have highlighted attacks on this type of location: consider the headlines 'Gunmen targeting pubs and clubs' (Sun Herald 3 October 2004: 34), 'Patrons lay low as bullets fly' (Herald Sun 20 November 2004), and 'Workers tied up as armed men rob hotel' (The Advertiser 7 June 2005). Police services have responded operationally to attacks against licensed premises, as illustrated in the headline 'Forensic focus on hotel gangs: ten extra officers to target pub robberies' (Daily Telegraph 13 September 2004:14).

An apparent increase in armed robberies in this location - reliable data to indicate national trends in the robbery of licensed premises are not yet available - may be due to the large takings potentially available to robbers because of the high cash turnover in these venues, and/or the lack of security relative to more traditional high gain targets such as banks. It is not clear if armed robberies in licensed venues tend to conform to a certain modus operandi, and in turn, if this differs from the mode of attack in other locations. However newspaper reports concerning this type of robbery do suggest that attacks may be more professional than, for instance, street muggings (earlier research into armed robberies suggested that there may be at least three types of armed robbery, spanning a continuum from more planned and professional, to unplanned and opportunistic attacks; see Mouzos & Borzycki 2003). By examining this subset of incidents in detail and potentially identifying the 'typical' licensed premises armed robbery, more appropriate security responses may be developed.