CUNA News Now: Robberies grew faster than other crimes, says FBI

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WASHINGTON (6/24/02)--Among violent crimes, robbery showed the greatest increase during 2001, according to the Nation's Crime Index. That certainly comes as no surprise to credit unions. Last year, 510 credit unions were robbed, compared with 221 in 1990, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Robberies last year increased 3.9% over robberies committed during 2000, the FBI announced Monday. Overall, the Crime Index indicated a 2% increase for violent crimes combined, including murder, robberies, assaults, rapes, property crimes, burglaries, larceny thefts, motor vehicle thefts and arson. In comparison, murder rose 3.1% and forcible rape 0.2%. Aggravated assault--the most frequently occurring violent crime in the index--was the only violent crime that decreased--by 1.4%.

Robberies increased in cities of all sizes, with cities of fewer than 10,000 people seeing the largest increase--7.2%. The largest cities, with more than one million people, reported the smallest increase--2.4% over 2000. The number of robberies increased 8.3% for suburban counties and 2.2% for rural counties.

Regionally, credit unions were better off if they were in the Northeast, where robberies decreased 2.3%, or in the Midwest, which had a 0.5% increase. Those in the South and the West saw incidents increase 7.1% for each region.

Despite the increase in overall incidents, robberies for 2001 declined in several major cities, including New York, which had 28,202 robberies compared with 32,558 in 2000; Chicago, 18,433 compared with 19,345 in 2000; and Philadelphia, with 9,604 compared with 10,425. Los Angeles and Houston experienced increases--Los Angeles to 17,166 from 15,527, and Houston, to 9,921 from 8,256. San Antonio, the city where two credit union tellers were taken hostage for nine hours in May, had 2,146 robberies in 2001, compared with 1,699 the year before.

CUNA recently asked the FBI to include credit unions in its summer conference with financial institutions about the rising robbery trend.

The FBI's statistics don't include the events of Sept. 11 because they are "statistical outliers" affecting current and future crime trends. The statistics released Monday are preliminary; final statistics for 2001 will be available this fall, said the FBI. Use the Resource Links for more information about the FBI's report and upcoming seminars related to robberies.