The crime of bank robbery is almost a thing of the past. Here is the reason.

On July 28, 2024, a woman entered a Princeton Bank four minutes before closing and pushed a cashier who asked for $ 30,000 in cash. She then pulled what the narrator thought of a weapon from her pants bag, the police said.

The cashier showed that her money drawer was empty, and the robber ordered two employees into the safe, where they gave their $ 60,500, the authorities said.

The woman did not bring a bag, so she left the bank on Route 206 with the cash stacks in a clear view, the authorities said.

A police detective arrested a suspect in September.

The attack was unique in several ways.

First, women have committed nationwide under 10% of bank robberies since 2003. In 2023 it was about 8%, as the FBI statistics show.

Secondly, the average bank robbery has been less than 10,000 US dollars for years and was a little more than 4,000 US dollars in 2019, the last year in which the FBI published the average.

The weapon was also not a firearm. The suspect later told the police that it was a toy water pistol that she had sprayed in black.

However, the most interesting event was the crime itself.

It just doesn't happen much more.

In 2023, New Jersey had only 18 bank robberies, a decline of 90% of 194 in 2008, as the FBI statistics show in the past 20 years.

The 15-year-old downward slide reflects a national drop. In the past two decades, bank robberies from 7,556 in 2004 to 1,263 in 2023 have dropped by 83%.

It also happens in the country's bank robbery: California.

In 2003 the state had 1,153 bank robberies. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, the entire state registered fewer than 200 raids with a low of 172 in 2022.

“This is a remarkable decline,” said Robert McCrie, Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He has been studying bank crime statistics for over 50 years.

The numbers he sees, said McCrie, are “incredible”.

A few things have led to the drop, he said.

There are fewer bank buildings nationwide. In 2008, over 82,000 bank branches poured the card. In 2023 it went under 70,000, as federal documents.

Second, McCrie know that potential bank robbers now know that the potential train is much lower than before because of better security.

According to the National Criminal Justice Association, robberies in the early 2000s were 9,600 US dollars, and the average value of around 7,500 US dollars around 2013 before the FBI decreased to USD EUR 4,000 in 2019.

“And then there are these cameras that are everywhere,” said McCrie.

It is not only within and around the bank, but also public security and surveillance cameras. And that is also immersed in criminal conscience, he says.

McCrie said he saw pictures of bank robbers on media pages that are really clear. “And that leads to concern,” he said.

According to the authorities, this happened in Princeton.

The suspect wore a light blue hat with a white logo, red glasses, a medical mask and the police published banking pictures for banking insurance monitoring on their Facebook page, about which several media.

It was not long after that the authorities received an anonymous tip, which named the suspect, a resident of Montgomery. The tipper also described her tattoos.

Daniel Chitren of the Princeton police quickly found the suspect on social media, wore a similar glasses, and brought them into surveillance in early September, he wrote in court documents.

He saw their tattoos personally and they voted from the bank material, the documents claim.

Chitren also had another technology layer in this case.

A license plate readers recorded the suspect's vehicle, which drove towards the bank 14 minutes before the robbery, and drove in the opposite direction three minutes after the bank had run.

Chitren arrested the suspect Ciara Brascom from Montgomery on September 24, 2024. Your case is pending before a federal court.

Another theory for the bank's robbery is a general relocation to cashless payment systems. In 2022, Denmark had no bank robberies and only one in 2021, over 200 two decades ago. An expert quoted the increase in surveillance cameras and reduced use of cash as reasons.

The National Criminal Justice Association also offers the theory that rising internet individual sales sales have led to the dramatic decline in bank robberies in the USA because people do not use so much money.

In both cases, McCrie often hears speculation that bank robbers who are aware of the current risks simply switch to Convenience stores and other companies that are known to bear cash.

“But I didn't really see [any evidence] That they switch, ”he said.

Overall robberies in the country have also dropped considerably in the past 20 years, as the FBI criminal crime statistics show.

McCrie said this was the kind of crime that “the crime no longer occurs” when certain actions are suppressed.

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Kevin Shea can be reached kshea@njadvancemedia.com