By Lisa Redmond
Lowell Sun
LOWELL — A plethora of holiday lights and Christmas carols playing nonstop on the radio aren’t the only signs of the season. A spike in robberies is another bellwether, local police say.
Every year, police say they see a spike in bank robberies around the holidays, but there seems to be little agreement as to why.
As soon as there was a chill in the air, Lowell and Dracut police reported a jump in bank robberies between October and November.
Police in those two communities responded to a total of seven bank robberies or attempted bank robberies between Oct. 12 and Nov. 27. Lowell was the hardest hit, with five bank robberies, while Dracut reported two during that two-month period.
Lowell police responded to a bank robbery on Nov. 15 at the Enterprise Bank on Merrimack Street. Four days later, there were back-to-back bank robberies at TD Banknorth branches in Dracut and Lowell.
The following week, the Enterprise Bank in Lowell was hit again, on Nov. 23, and TD Banknorth in Lowell was hit on Nov. 27.
“The second robbery at Enterprise Bank was committed because the suspect got lucky (with the first robbery) and felt that they might able to pull it off again,” Lowell police Capt. Kelly Richardson said.
Late last month, the FBI joined forces with Dracut and Lowell police departments to search for suspects in bank heists at two TD Banknorth sites in Lowell -- 32 Mammoth Road and 45 Central St. -- and TD Banknorth at 1255 Bridge St., Dracut.
What explains the rash of robberies?
FBI spokesman Greg Comcowich declined to comment on any ongoing investigations, but admitted, “We don’t know why but it is not unusual to see a spike around the holidays.”
Richardson said Lowell “always sees an increase at the holiday season, regardless of the economy.”
“But I’m sure that with more people out of work, it is causing a greater increase,” he added.
Drug addicts always need money for drugs, Richardson said, and robbing a bank may seem like a big score. And there is increased pressure for cash when Santa’s sleigh is empty.
But Larry Siegel, a professor of criminal justice and criminology at UMass Lowell, disagrees. He describes Lowell’s increased bank robberies as a fluke.
“I strongly believe that in the short term (under 10 years), criminals are not affected by the economy,” Siegel said. “They don’t have jobs so they are not subject to being laid off.”
The 1977 comedy Fun with Dick and Jane with George Segal and Jane Fonda (and the 2005 remake starring Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni), about a comfortable, middle-class couple who resort to robbery after Dick’s company goes belly up, is “a myth,” Siegel said.
“It’s a myth that people who are unemployed become criminals,” Siegel said.
He suggested that most of the recent bank robberies are being committed by one or two people -- maybe someone just released from prison -- who hits the streets and “goes back to what they know.”
The engineer who gets laid off is more likely to turn to cybercrime than walking into a bank with a gun, he said.
A drug addict may rob a bank every few days or weeks when the money for drugs runs out. The average score from a bank robbery is about $4,000, Siegel said, compared to the hundreds of dollars in cash, cigarettes and lottery tickets from convenience stores that are robbed each year.
Regardless of why these robberies are being committed, Richardson said, “The Lowell Police Department will stay vigilant through the holiday season to ensure that we do everything in our power to prevent these crimes and will work diligently to apprehend any participants.”
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