Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey everybody,
Speaker 1: I'm Christian Sager. Welcome to brain Stuff. Little note first,
Speaker 1: I only agreed to do this episode about bank robbing
Speaker 1: if I could make references to all of my favorite
Speaker 1: heist films. We've all seen bank robberies in movies like
Speaker 1: Point Break or Heat, and I'll admit I've got a
Speaker 1: little bit of an addiction to the video game pay
Speaker 1: Day two. But moral quandries aside, bank robbers have often
Speaker 1: been romanticized throughout history, especially during times of economic instability.
Speaker 1: Just think of Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, and Jesse James.
Speaker 1: So it's no wonder that across the United States, people
Speaker 1: from various walks of life have occasionally thought, why shouldn't
Speaker 1: I rob a bank? Let me stop you right there, slick.
Speaker 1: There are several reasons you shouldn't, even if you think
Speaker 1: you have the perfect plan. First, it is dangerous. Completely
Speaker 1: innocent people could and do die in robberies. Criminals in
Speaker 1: this town used to believe in things on her respect.
Speaker 1: And it's also obviously illegal, not some wishy washy blue
Speaker 1: law kind of illegal like selling beer on a Sunday. Either,
Speaker 1: it is a straight up felony. The average sentence for
Speaker 1: federal bank robbery, which means robbing any f D I
Speaker 1: C member bank, can vary widely depending on several factors.
Speaker 1: In the US, these factors are outlined under Title eighteen,
Speaker 1: Section two one one three of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
Speaker 1: Was anyone injured? How much money did the criminals take?
Speaker 1: Were weapons involved? These factors add up quickly, and when
Speaker 1: the robbers are caught, they can be looking at decades
Speaker 1: in jail. Not to mention the findes. Notice that I
Speaker 1: said when they're caught, not if that's the second thing.
Speaker 1: If you rub a bank, you will probably get caught.
Speaker 1: According to the Department of Justice, the FBI's clearance rank
Speaker 1: for a bank robbery is nearly sixty and about half
Speaker 1: of those are solved within thirty days. It makes sense
Speaker 1: when you think of about the typical bank robbery. Of
Speaker 1: the five thousand and fourteen US bank robberies that took
Speaker 1: place in eleven most occurred during the day, meaning there
Speaker 1: were multiple witnesses. The police are notified as quickly as possible,
Speaker 1: and it is a safe bet that there's photographic evidence too.
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Fridays are the most popular days of the
Speaker 1: week for a bank robbery, and most robbers are total amateurs.
Speaker 1: More than eighty percent have no prior convictions for bank crime,
Speaker 1: and eight percent operate alone using predictable patterns. These guys
Speaker 1: don't imagine a fellow smarter than themselves and try to
Speaker 1: think what would he do. These criminals are often apprehended
Speaker 1: on the same day of the robbery, and banks are
Speaker 1: full of strategies for catching them, including exploding die packs.
Speaker 1: But let's say you've already thought of that, right. You've
Speaker 1: seen heist films like Oceans eleven or The Joker Heist
Speaker 1: in the Dark Night, and you know that a well
Speaker 1: organized team can mean the difference between early retirement in
Speaker 1: the Caymans or a long bid in sing Sing. Professional
Speaker 1: bank robbers ten operating crews using weapons and stolen vehicles,
Speaker 1: and it's true that a crew can up your chances
Speaker 1: of a successful heist. Teams can divide the robbery tasks
Speaker 1: and also tend to spend more time on planning and reconnaissance.
Speaker 1: This strategy can lead to a larger overall take. A
Speaker 1: study by several British economists found that quote every extra
Speaker 1: member of the gang raises the expected value of the
Speaker 1: robbery proceeds by nine thousand and thirty three pounds or
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand, two hundred and twelve dollars. But keep in
Speaker 1: mind that the hall per person will go down with
Speaker 1: each new member still set on a career in heists,
Speaker 1: Remember you can't let yourself get attached to anything you
Speaker 1: are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds
Speaker 1: flat if you feel the heat around the corner. Are
Speaker 1: the terrible odds, the legal consequences, and the risk to
Speaker 1: innocent life not enough to dissuade you? Well? Consider this
Speaker 1: last fact. Bank robberies don't actually make that much money.
Speaker 1: According to the study I just mentioned, the average return
Speaker 1: on a bank heist in the UK is about nineteen thousand,
Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars per person per heist. In the US
Speaker 1: it's even worse, a bit over four thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine. While that might sound like a lot
Speaker 1: of scratch, it's not enough to set you up for life.
Speaker 1: As of the current US poverty threshold is an annual
Speaker 1: income of eleven thousand, four ninety dollars for one person.
Speaker 1: This means you would have to rob three banks a
Speaker 1: year and keep all of the loot just to stay
Speaker 1: out of the poorhouse. Hardly a glamorous lifestyle. Of course,
Speaker 1: this doesn't mean that heist movies aren't cool, just that
Speaker 1: you shouldn't try them at home or in a bank.
Speaker 1: Check out the brain stuff channel on YouTube, and for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com.