Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Female Bank Robbers--a New Trend or just Bonnie without Clyde?

Say Uncle emailed me today to tell me about a local bank robbery committed by a 90 pound woman and asked if I had noticed a trend of female bank robbers. I checked out the local story and saw that it was my bank that had been robbed this morning! Glad I went to another branch today just by coincidence.

Anyway, I don't know if there is a trend of female bank robbers, although there was the recent case of the Barbie Bandits in Georgia who held up a bank. That one, however, was some kind of inside job with the tellers of the bank. What I find interesting, though, is that now women are the ones doing the actual robberies--in the past, men generally did them or women waited for them in the getaway car. Women are still a much smaller percentage--about 10% of bank robberies but in Fairfax county in recent years, the rate rose to 25%--one woman even talked on the cell phone the whole time she robbed her banks--talk about multitasking!

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30 Comments:

Blogger Alcibiades said...

Perhaps the Cell Phone Bandit was trying to establish an insanity defense. Or claim she was being forced to rob banks by the a mystery person on the other end of the phone.

7:09 PM, April 03, 2007  
Blogger Sirena said...

This issue reminds me of an article I read once that explained the increase of cigarette smoking among women. The premise was that as women had greater access to the "novelty" of cigarettes the use of cigarettes among women increased.
It just makes me think that as females have greater access to commit crimes they will actually do it.

7:09 PM, April 03, 2007  
Blogger Mark said...

Back in the early nineties, I read (and reviewed for World Magazine, if memory serves) a book entitled "shoot the women first." This was a series of interviews with women terrorists. The title came from the advice she heard that circulates in counter-terrorist units about how to prioritize if you burst in on a terrorist cell and hope to survive.

I've always felt the portrayals of women knocking men down with their fists was feminist propaganda. But the portrayals of women being extremely dangerous with firearms (Kate in "Lost" for example) don't strike me as exaggerated at all.

7:32 PM, April 03, 2007  
Blogger Kim du Toit said...

Helen, Helen, Helen... it's those eeeevil GUNS which are making women commit those crimes.

Well, that or the phallocentric marketing campaigns of the eeeevil gun manufacturers.

8:23 PM, April 03, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Also, two recent robberies by women were with bombs. Not guns. Sorry, kim.

-SayUncle

8:31 PM, April 03, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And, mark, women make great bodyguards. Some wealthy affluent person hires two guards: one is the stereotypical, big, gigantic black dude (who we call 'target' because all eyes of ne'er do wells are on him) and the second is the 90 pound woman with the glock who can put two in your eye from 20 yards.

-SayUncle

8:35 PM, April 03, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Starting with Pinkerton associate Kate Warn, who served as a bodyguard for Abraham Lincoln.

12:19 AM, April 04, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hmmmm well, there was the "floppy hat" bandit here in Ontario. There have always been a few women robbing banks but most crime by women (against financial institutions) seems to be embezelment(sp?).

Mind you, there might well be a rise in the number of couple committed bank robberies. Just based on TV news, that might be true.

3:40 AM, April 04, 2007  
Blogger DADvocate said...

Last year a lone woman robbed a bank in Newport, KY, near Cincinnati.

And, there is the recent case of the Barbie bandits.

It sure seems female bank robbers are on the rise.

7:13 AM, April 04, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

>>"Starting with Pinkerton associate Kate Warn, who served as a bodyguard for Abraham Lincoln."

Apparently unsuccessfully.

(Sorry. I had to. it was just staring me in the face.)

Rusty

9:33 AM, April 04, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I guess this goes along with the growth in boxing among women.

This is "empowerment of women," right? Along with divorce? And "a woman's right to choose"?

Why is that when men seek certain behaviors, they're labeled as abusive or as sociopaths, yet when women seek the same behaviors, this is called empowerment?

Rusty

9:38 AM, April 04, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We've always had female criminals: Bonnie Parker, Belle Starr, Ma Barker, etc. I think they get more attention by the press because they are unusual. I'd just have to see statistics on bank robberies over a long period to identify this as a trend.

10:32 AM, April 04, 2007  
Blogger LordSomber said...

The worst part about the Barbie Bandits (and it came as no surprise) was the parents trying to excuse them.
"They're little girls that made a bad choice."

http://rosemond.com/index.php?action=website-view&WebSiteID=389&WebPageID=14737

12:31 PM, April 04, 2007  
Blogger Radish said...

"I guess this goes along with the growth in boxing among women."

You can't compare sports participation to criminal acts with any credibility.

3:10 PM, April 04, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry, Radish. I think you're wrong. There is, across the board, a growth in the tendency of women toward violence, and make no mistake, boxing is violence, supervised violence, but violence nonetheless.

Rusty

5:17 PM, April 04, 2007  
Blogger Cham said...

Bandits, robbers and boxers. It certainly blows the "sugar, spice, everything nice" theory.

9:20 PM, April 04, 2007  
Blogger Mercurior said...

well women wanted to be treated equally, and now you have more female robbers, and serial killers

And yet a lot of these women are let off their crimes, as they blame abusive parents, the ever popular stress,

http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/428/428lect11.htm

Statistically, females usually account for about 15% of all violent crime and 28% of all property crime. However, there has been about a 140% increase in the number of crimes committed by women since 1970, and the upward trend is steady. Researchers typically track female offenders on FBI Part II offenses since they far outnumber men in two Part II categories: prostitution and runaway. However, they have significant numbers in embezzlement (41%), fraud (39%), forgery (36%), and larceny-theft (33%). For homicide, one of the most frequently-cited facts is a Justice Department study in 1991 which found females who were incarcerated for murder were twice as likely as men incarcerated for murder to have killed an intimate (husband, boyfriend, or child).

4:49 AM, April 05, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is totally OT, but I've been missing Dr. Helen's blog for a week because whenever I link to it, I get the entry for March 29. Finally found a roundabout way to get the latest, but it's not especially convenient.

Any suggestions?

12:29 PM, April 05, 2007  
Blogger Helen said...

Bugs,

Not sure why that is happening. Try putting in the URL at www.drhelen.blogspot.com and see if that works instead of linking through from another site etc.

2:45 PM, April 05, 2007  
Blogger Kim du Toit said...

"two recent robberies by women were with bombs. Not guns. Sorry, Kim."


Guns, bombs, they're all eeeevil.

Even the Gummint thinks so, hence "ATFE".

2:51 PM, April 05, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have a question. If women make up roughly 50% of the population, why do they not commit roughly 50% of the crime?

4:01 PM, April 05, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dr. Helen,

Please tell us about Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Please write a story so that these people's memory does not fade away because of purposeful silence.

5:48 PM, April 05, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fixed. You're my hero!

6:24 PM, April 05, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now I can't think of anything to say. Oh, poop...

6:30 PM, April 05, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anon 4:01:

Who says they don't? True, they represent far less than 50% of the convictions, but then, you have to recognize that: a) some of the crimes women commit aren't being prosecuted with the same zeal; b) many women involved in serious crimes where a man is an accomplice are offered immunity to testify against the man. Finally, women seem to be targeted by lesser charges. Consider the case of Paula Poundstone. Thought it's difficult to know what really happened because the court records have been conveniently sealed, unofficial reports include allegations of sexual misconduct, whereas she was charged with non-sex-crime charges, like misdemeanor public drunkenness. On the other hand, prosecutors seem to delight in making even the weakest sex-crime case against men (consider the Duke lacrosse team).

Here's an interesting question for you to ponder: It's fairly-well proven that a woman receives a measurably lighter sentence than a man for the same crime in similar circumstances. For example, NOW complained a few years back about the 'harsh' levels of probation women were receiving when men receive far less probation. But they soon shut their pie-holes when they found that the reason men were received far less probation was because they were going to jail instead.

Given the Fourteenth Amendment, why is that?

Rusty

8:08 PM, April 05, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Babes behind bars. Cool...

4:25 PM, April 06, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What counts as a "woman's crime" depends upon how you define it.

Men have been legally raped in divorce & family courts for decades, but it's not news.

If the predatory gender conceals its means of predation, and has their harvesting of men's assets sanctioned by the state, then no crimes have occured, right?

12:40 AM, April 08, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Men have been raped, phsyically as well, but its never publicised,

http://www.lycos.com/info/male-rape.html

FACT The vast majority of male rape victims, as well as their rapists, are heterosexual.Male rape victims now represent 8% of the primary victims served by the Orange County Rape Crisis Center. Rapists are motivated by the desire to have power and control over another person, not by sexual attraction. Male rape is not homosexual rape. Many male victims do not report the assault because they fear further humiliation.

UK Male rape is still not recognised under Scottish law. The definition of rape, set out in 1844, states it is an offence that can only be carried out by a man against a woman

3:19 PM, April 08, 2007  
Blogger Serket said...

My uncle is currently serving time for about 15 bank robberies. He supports gun control and claims he wouldn't be a criminal if guns were more restricted.

2:06 PM, April 16, 2007  
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