Street Robberies - A Research Based Perspective

The practicing of self-defense techniques outside of the contexts, within which they are designed to be used, can never be categorized, or defined as being reality-based. Practicing a gun disarm, or a solution to knife attack from the perspective of, if somebody points a gun to your head, so you do this, or when somebody threatens you with a knife, you use this technique etc., is only applicable for threats and attacks that take place within your school/training space, as this is the context within which you are practicing them. If you want to make the training relevant, the correct and accurate context/scenario needs to be created, and effective threat analysis and decision-making trained alongside the execution of the technique (or the decision not to apply a physical solution). It is easy as an instructor to satisfy a student’s desire to always be able to physically control a potentially violent situation, but this isn’t always realistic. And it would be irresponsible to bend and mold reality so that every physical solution and technique taught worked in every scenario and context. In this article I want to look at some pieces of research around street robberies/muggings, so that we can have a better idea of what such activities actually look like, rather than simply trying to imagine how such offenses are committed, and/or use anecdotal evidence from friends and acquaintances who may have been victimized. I have in the past had people argue that academic research is “theory”, and I think it is worth knocking this myth/argument on its head at the beginning. My own experiences of violence are limited to myself, and the contexts within which I experienced violence. A researcher interviewing multiple victims of a particular offense, along with those offenders who commit them, has access to many, many more experiences, and many different contexts which are able to inform us as to what the real world – outside of our own experiences – looks like.

Research by Smith (2003), commissioned by the UK Home Office, found that 76% of personal robbery victims and 94% of offenders were male i.e., muggings are by and large male-on-male affairs. There may be several reasons for this. One reason is that in many cases, where committing certain crimes are concerned, especially those involving violence, the offenders are trying to establish and demonstrate “masculinity” – this has been consistently demonstrated in research conducted both in the UK, US, and Australia (Bookman et al., 2007). Whilst an offense such as street robbery may seem to be primarily motivated by the need to acquire assets, namely money, it is also an expressive crime where the perpetrator gets to express an identity, they’ve created for themselves, gaining a sense of power and control over those they target and victimize. This may require them to target men, rather than women. Another reason may be due to “opportunity”. Research by Harding et al. (2019) in Scotland, showed that in certain cases muggings were committed recreationally, as a means of entertainment, by groups (some formal others informal) to stave off boredom. They found that this was especially true of groups of male teenagers and young boys, who would target others they came across as a means of establishing reputation within the group i.e., there was a performance element to these crimes. These groups, as they got older, would then start to commit street robberies as a means of generating cash in order to buy alcohol and drugs, maintaining the same methods that they did when they were younger i.e., they already had a model concerning who they targeted and the way they committed their crimes. It is worth noting that street robberies aren’t just about the money, they are also used to establish identity, both to self and to the group; Smith’s research found that 62 % of all muggings were committed by two or more people, with Deuchar (2018), finding that committing offenses together, was a form of bonding for those who did so. Whilst it may be tempting to suggest that there are major differences between street robberies in one country compared to another, Wright et al. (2006), found that this wasn’t the case. When we start to treat a street robbery as an expressive, rather than a purely instrumental crime, there is a lot more at stake than just a wallet etc.

Smith’s research also led to her creation of four basic typologies, based on the level of violence, and interaction with the victimized individual. These are: Blitz, Snatch, Confrontation and Con. She also recognized a fifth, where the person victimized, initiated the interaction, such as a drug user being mugged by a dealer etc. In a Blitz robbery, there is a low level of interaction and a high use of violence e.g., instead of engaging in any form of dialogue the offender simply starts physically attacking those they’ve targeted – it was found that 48.6% of individuals who engaged in these types of assaults, were either on drugs at the time of the robbery or looking to get cash to buy drugs. Snatch robberies tended to involve long periods of surveillance, and synchronization of movement, where the offender watched and followed those they’d targeted, waiting for an opportunity to “snatch” whatever valuables were visible e.g., mobile phones (if in use at the time these would be unlocked), handbags, purses etc. These types of incidents tended to use little violence, unless the person being victimized tried to fight back (Brookman & Bennett, 2011; Wright et al., 2006). It is again worth remembering that in the majority of muggings there are two or more offenders, so most instances of fighting back will involve multiple assailants. High violence, and high interaction, robberies used physical intimidation as a means to force those targeted to acquiesce, these were the interactions where a weapon might be used, though it is still worth remembering that many muggings (43% according to a 2013 FBI report – though this isn’t universal across the US) are conducted without i.e., are categorized as strong-arm robberies. When you consider that the majority of street robberies involve two or more individuals, that is usually going to be enough of a show of force without a weapon being required. Smith noted that the con approach accounted for the smallest percentage of street robberies, suggesting that it was the most involved and took longest to plan e.g., muggers are looking for a quick and easy crime.

By understanding that street robberies are expressive rather than simply instrumental/transactional crimes, we can understand that there is a deeper level of emotional content to muggings than we may have first thought i.e., it is a higher-stake type of offense than something that simply involves acquiring assets. When we start thinking of it as an offense that is largely committed by two or more people, we may want to think about incorporating this into our training, and see what our solutions now look like e.g., gun disarming whilst being attacked by a second assailant etc. In short we should make sure our training is relevant and contextual.