NCJ Number
222002
Date Published
2008
Length
74 pages
Annotation
This 2005 Annual Report of Australia's National Armed Robbery Monitoring Program (NARMP) presents an overview of the 7,210 victims of armed robbery in 2005, along with the characteristics of the situations, including locations, that made them vulnerable to victimization.
Abstract
There was an 8-percent increase in the number of armed-robbery victims compared with 2004. Knives constituted just over half of the weapons used in the robberies, with only 7 percent involving handguns. Just under half of the victims were robbed in some type of retail location. Males ages 18-19 had the highest rates of armed-robbery victimizations. Fourteen percent of offenders were known to the victims. Thirty percent of all armed robberies occurred on the street, and 65 percent occurred between 6:00 pm and 6:00 am. They were only slightly more likely to occur on a weekend. Jurisdictions reported the property most likely to be stolen was cash (average of $1,232 per incident), followed by electrical items, including cell phones. Nine in 10 offenders were male, and 95 percent were under 40 years old. These data, combined with data from the previous 2 years, indicate that the features of armed robbery in Australia have not changed significantly. They are either low-yield, unplanned, and essentially opportunistic, as in the majority of street robberies; or they are high-gain, using more difficult-to-obtain weapons, which typically occur in specific retail sites. It is not yet clear whether pub robberies are a relatively new phenomenon; however, the pub robberies analyzed in the NARMP have become more common over the 3 years of data collection. The NARMP collects data on victims and incidents of armed robberies from police services in all Australian jurisdictions. 26 tables and 15 references