How Robberies Succeed or Fail

Abstract

Objective: This article analyzes how convenience store robberies work and why some take an unexpected turn and fail. It examines the situational dynamics of crime by studying behavioral and emotional dynamics between clerks and perpetrators during robberies comparatively. The focus is on perpetrators’ displays of threats and clerks’ seemingly irrational acts of noncompliance and resistance. Method: The sample is comprised of 20 successful and failed robberies in the United States between 2010 and 2016. By qualitatively analyzing closed-circuit television (CCTV) recordings, the study assesses what happens during such crimes. Analyzing footage uploaded to online video platforms such as YouTube, the study uses growing databases so far unexplored by sociological and criminological research. Findings suggest that successful store robberies follow specific situational rituals in which actors display adequate behaviors and emotions. Rituals are broken if perpetrators or victims act out of character and display, even unintentionally, unexpected behaviors or emotions. Conclusion: This exploratory study suggests that microlevel factors play a crucial role in what manifests as a robbery versus attempted robbery. Further, it highlights challenges and advantages of analyzing CCTV recordings uploaded online when studying crime caught on camera.

Intervention or Involvement: A Video Observational Analysis of Bouncers in Aggressive Encounters

“…Finally, video data of crime events may be difficult to collect in large quantities, which when combined with stringent video content and quality exclusion criteria often results in small sample sizes (see e.g., Nassauer 2018;Levine et al 2011;Philpot, Liebst, Levine, Bernasco and Lindegaard, 2019). The current study is not exempt from these challenges and, as such, the validity of our results stems from the information richness of the observations rather than from the quantitative size of the sample (Ragin 2000).…”

A Data Verification System for CCTV Surveillance Cameras Using Blockchain Technology in Smart Cities

“…In expansion, an assortment of reasons undermines the respectability of video information caught on CCTV [31]. On the other hand, CCTV-based administrations are being reinforced and diversified.…”

Analyzing 21st Century Video Data on Situational Dynamics—Issues and Challenges in Video Data Analysis

“…Nassauer and Legewie (2018) distilled the approach from related methodological fields (mainly visual studies, ethnography, psychological laboratory experiments, and multimodal interaction analysis), as well as existing studies that focus on situational dynamics with video data. Such studies have examined atrocities (Klusemann 2009), protest violence (Bramsen 2018;Nassauer 2012), drug selling (Sytsma and Piza 2018), or street fights (Levine et al 2011;Philpot and Levine 2016;Liebst et al 2018), emergency call centers (Fele 2008) robberies (Mosselman et al 2018;Nassauer 2018b), and learning (Derry et al 2010;Mehan 1979), among many other phenomena. While such VDA-related applications rely on very different theoretical underpinnings and may employ different types of quantitative or qualitative analysis, all share a focus on situational dynamics.…”

“…In some cases, this means to test a hypothesis or theory formulated beforehand; e.g., whether situational patterns are necessary for violence emergence (Bramsen 2018;Klusemann 2009). In other cases, the approach will be more inductive, analyzing data to explore whether situational dynamics may explain when and how a given outcome occurs, e.g., how far situational pathways are relevant to a successful crime (Nassauer 2018b).…”