Armed Robbery in Australia: 2004 National Armed Robbery Monitoring Program Annual Report

• NCJ Number: 215531
• Author(s): Maria Borzycki
• Date Published: 2006
• Length: 71 pages
• Sale Source: Australian Institute of Criminology
• Publication Format: Document (Online)
• Publication Type: Statistics; Report (Annual/Periodic)
• Language: English
• Country: Australia
• Note: AIC Research and Public Policy Series, No. 69; downloaded September 11, 2006.

Annotation

This report presents findings from the second year of data collection (January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2004) for Australia's National Armed Robbery Monitoring Program (NARMP), which collects information on armed robberies from all police services in Australian States and Territories.

Abstract

There was a decrease in the number of armed robbery victims in 2004 compared with 2003, consistent with other recorded crime data. Knives composed half of the weapons used in armed robberies, and firearms composed a smaller proportion of weapons compared with 2003 armed robberies. Boys and men composed approximately 75 percent of the victims, with approximately two-thirds of the male victims being less than 30 years old. Victims engaged in employment duties when they were robbed were most often in unspecified retail settings. Most of the armed robberies were committed by lone offenders, and less than 10 percent of the victims had any prior relationship with offenders. Single victims were involved in 6 of every 10 robberies. Just over 15 percent of the robberies occurred in the street or in an unspecified retail setting. Just over one-third of the incidents that contained information on stolen property indicated that any property was taken in the robbery. The most common combination of stolen property was cash and electrical equipment, with the average value of the property stolen being $1,660. Robberies that involved a firearm yielded the highest value in stolen property. Offenders were predominantly male, and the majority regardless of gender, were less than 40 years old. These 2004 data were consistent with 2003 data in showing that robberies were either unplanned and opportunistic, bringing little if anything of significant value to the robber, or involved the use of a firearm at retail sites, bringing a higher gain to the robber. Inconsistent data coding across jurisdictions suggest that these data do not necessarily cover all armed robberies that occurred in Australia in 2004. 26 tables and 8 references