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)

5. Conclusions

Findings from these analyses are generally in keeping with conclusions from the 2003 annual report. Fewer victim records were contained in the 2004 dataset, and a smaller proportion of weapons used in victimisations were firearms, but in general, the features of armed robbery victims in Australia over the two years were similar. Additional incident-based analyses were conducted on 2004 data, and when viewed in conjunction with victim- based analyses, suggest that armed robberies in Australia span a continuum from highly opportunistic, to relatively planned. At one extreme, there are low-yield, unplanned and essentially opportunistic armed robberies, especially in terms of weapons used, such as is the case in the majority of street robberies, and those in locations such as service stations. The other extreme appears to be those that result in high gains, employing more difficult to obtain weapons, and involving some form of planning or reconnaissance by offenders, such as armed robberies occurring in certain retail sites like banks and other financial settings. Data from the current analyses also suggest that some residential armed robberies - home invasions - and a small subset of street robberies may also fall into this category, as do robberies against licensed premises, which are explored in detail in the following case study.