360 Bank Robberies in San Diego County—2007–2009

Automated Regional Justice Information System

         

         

San Diego has a central database and application management system for local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in the region. This database houses more than 5 million law enforcement records per year and is maintained by the Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS). This vast collection of data is especially valuable for timely GIS analysis, as crime knows no boundaries.

This study processed 321 bank robberies in 246 banks in San Diego County during a two-year period (May 2007 to May 2009). In the final analysis, six maps explain the spatial aspects of incidents and what deters and attracts bank robbers based on bank location, the number of bank robberies, and changes in security.

San Diego’s topography, highway systems, commercial main roads, residential character, and natural ocean and mountain boundaries are typical of Southern California. In addition, the county is bounded on the south by the U.S.–Mexican border and on the north by the Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton.

The major finding of the analysis was that bank robberies are poorly planned and random and that banks that are located on major roads are often robbed multiple times. The only deterrent was the proximity of police stations to the banks. Banks within a half mile of a police station were robbed less often. Once banks were robbed twice, the security was increased and the bank was not robbed a third time. Also, the daily and hourly heat map—the temporal heat index—showed that Monday morning and Friday afternoon are the most targeted hours by robbers: Incidents in central and south San Diego predominantly fall on Thursday and Friday while North County tends to be hit more on Monday and Tuesday.

Courtesy of ARJIS, basemap data from SANGIS and SANDAG.

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