by Fox Butterfield, New York Times
WHITINSVILLE, Mass. - A new sign awaits customers at the door of the UniBank branch here in this town in south-central Massachusetts. It asks them to remove any hats or sunglasses, as a security precaution, and if a person does not comply, a teller will repeat the request.
UniBank put the policy in place after a branch was robbed in April, part of a surge in bank robberies nationwide that has been particularly acute in Massachusetts. Last year, there were 265 bank robberies in Massachusetts, a jump of almost 70 percent from 2000, when there were 156, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Nationally, bank robberies rose 11 percent in 2001, F.B.I. figures show. The increase is one of the largest for any crime at a time when crime in general has begun to rise after a decade of declining. Preliminary data released last month by the F.B.I. found that over all, violent and property crime rose 2 percent in 2001.
The number of bank robberies in Massachusetts has risen so high that a Massachusetts Bankers Association task force of bankers and law enforcement officers conducted a six-month study of how to combat the problem. Among the recommendations of the study, which was completed last week, is for banks to post signs, like the ones UniBank put up, asking customers to remove hats and sunglasses so potential robbers will know they can be more easily identified by security cameras.
The task force is also recommending that banks post large video screens near their entrances, so would-be robbers can see they are under surveillance, and that greeters are at the door to force robbers to interact with someone before getting to the teller counter. In addition, the task force has developed a Web site, where photographs of robbery suspects can be posted, and pooled money to be used by the police for tips from informers.
No one is certain what lies behind the increase in bank robberies.
“I honestly can’t explain it,” said Maj. Richard Fraelick, deputy commander of the investigative services division of the Massachusetts State Police, who was on the task force.
Among possible reasons for the increase, said Kevin Kiley, executive vice president of the bankers association, are the downturn in the economy, a rise in the number of inmates being released from prison and a mistaken belief by criminals that the F.B.I.'s attention to ordinary crime was diverted by the events of Sept. 11. The last reason has gained popularity among some experts because the biggest surge in bank robberies came after the September attacks.
But Scott Decker, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, said these theories missed a more important factor: the transformation of banks in recent years from large, forbidding downtown institutions complete with armed guards to something more like convenience stores.
There has been a huge increase in the number of branch banks in suburban neighborhoods, malls and even supermarkets, Professor Decker said, and “they are much easier to get into and out of, more convenient for customers, but also more convenient targets for robbers to hit.”
As a result, “bank robberies have become more like snatch-and-grabs at convenience stores,” said Professor Decker, the author of “Armed Robbers in Action” (Northeastern University Press, 1997).
The typical bank robber has changed, too. No longer are bank robbers the elite criminals like John Dillinger, at the top of the pecking order in the world of prison society. Instead, most are small-time drug addicts, lone operators who need money for their next fix, Mr. Kiley said.
Most bank robbers these days, apparently, do not even carry guns. In Massachusetts last year, 82 percent of bank robberies were carried out by people who simply passed a note to the teller demanding cash, Mr. Kiley said.
But once these robbers succeed, they tend to repeat their crimes, said Gail Marcinkiewicz, a spokeswoman for the F.B.I. in Boston. Of the 127 bank robberies in Boston last year, Ms. Marcinkiewicz said, 90 were committed by 29 people.
At the UniBank branch in Whitinsville, about halfway between Worcester, Mass., and Providence, R.I., Phillip D. Brown, the president and chief executive of UniBank, was at first hesitant to post the signs.
“But the situation was becoming so serious that I thought something had to be done,” said Mr. Brown, who said he was growing more worried about the safety of his customers and employees.
“After we explained our reasons, we’ve had no problems with our customers,” he added.
Law enforcement experts believe that asking anyone coming into the bank to remove hat and sunglasses is useful because the average bank robbery takes only 60 seconds, so any obstructions put in the way of a robber may send him in search of an easier target.
Questions have arisen over whether the F.B.I. will reduce its role in dealing with bank robberies now that it is transforming itself into an antiterrorist organization. Ms. Marcinkiewicz said the bureau would no longer investigate unarmed “note passers” unless there was evidence the criminal had robbed other banks.
But the F.B.I. will continue to gather information on all bank robberies, Ms. Marcinkiewicz said, and not much will change in practice because the local police have always done the bulk of bank robbery investigations.