Inside the mind of a robber

[Nom Chompsky]

One in three house robbers have murdered and on average they commit 104 crimes before the law finally catches up with them. And with each crime perpetrated over an average period of seven-and-a-half years, they become more and more violent.

This is the disturbing profile of a convicted house robber revealed in a study conducted by senior forensic investigation lecturer at Unisa, Dr Rudolph Zinn.


In the course of his two-year long research project, Zinn interviewed 30 convicted house robbers who were serving time in six high security prisons around Gauteng.

"I found that 30 percent of them had murdered while committing a house robbery. They simply said that they have to use violence. I think those criminals who respect human life would probably stop before they become house robbers, " said Zinn.

His study also exposed the myth that most house robbers were black and foreign.

"About 17 percent of them were foreigners, the rest came from all race groups and cultures across South Africa," he explained.

They were, however, generally from poor backgrounds.

About 90 percent had not got a matric and most, Zinn found, were unemployed.

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[HakSaw]

Some more findings from Zinn's research:

he most-recent research about South Africa's crime shows that eight out of every 10 house robberies are committed with the help of information that robbers gather from domestic workers, gardeners and people who know the residents.

http://www.24.com/news/?p=tsa&i=967799

 

[dlk001]

Whats depressing is that the people we suppose to trust are part of the crime syndicate. The most competent police offers seem to work for the wrong side of the law.

 

[Cara]

Interesting study.

What surprised me was the age of these criminals:

Zinn found that most house robbers are aged between 19 and 26, but that their criminal careers, began when they were in their teens.

"I discovered that the youngest person committing house robberies was 12. I also found that the younger the person when they began their life of crime, the more violent they were later in life," explained Zinn.

Guess if they start early they don't have a chance of being socialised properly which makes violence easier to perpetrate.

 

[Nod]

Interesting study.

What surprised me was the age of these criminals:

Guess if they start early they don't have a chance of being socialised properly which makes violence easier to perpetrate ... no pesky guilty conscience or moral grounding to get in the way.

Most of the break ins that I have experience with, consisted of youngsters being sent in through the windows (burglar bars), and then while one is packing stuff in bags, the other is looking for keys to unlock the doors for the adults.

This worked only once, as we locked our keys away after that. Although they tried again, they couldn't get out with anything worth much.