This is not a good time to pursue a life of crime

This is not a good time to pursue a life of crime

Seventy-five years ago, times were tough and the nation was approaching the end of what came to be known as the “public enemy era,” when bank robbers roamed the land.

They became legends and their names are recognizable even today: Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd and John Dillinger. Their lives of crime and their violent deaths inspired poems, books, songs and movies.

As 1933 came to an end, they were folk heroes, admired by people who were able to look past the robbers’ victims, many of whom were police officers, and see the criminals as Robin Hoods or, at least, common folk who were able to strike a blow against the banks, the establishment and the monied class.

By the end of 1934, all were dead.

Bonnie and Clyde died in a bullet-riddled Ford sedan on May 23, 1934, in Louisiana, cut down in an ambush by police armed with automatic rifles and shotguns.

John Dillinger was shot dead in an alley next to a Chicago theater July 22, 1934, after being betrayed to the FBI by a “Lady in Red.”

“Pretty Boy” Floyd was trying to get to Youngstown, where he figured he’d be able to lay low, when FBI agents and local police caught up with him on a farm near Wellsville Oct. 22, 1934. Though wounded by a sharpshooter’s bullet, Floyd continued to run toward a tree line until an FBI agent gave the command for everyone to open fire.

Those deaths make 2008 the diamond jubilee of the end of an era.

A comeback of sorts

We recall these events and relay them as something of a cautionary tale, an affirmation of the conventional wisdom that crime doesn’t pay. And we do so because some recent news stories have suggested that as times get tougher, professional and amateur law breakers become emboldened.

In New York City, five banks were robbed on a single day, Monday. Just last year, the city averaged fewer than one bank robbery a day. The NYPD reports 431 bank robberies as of Monday, a 54 percent increase over the 280 in 2007.

Michelle Renee, a former banking executive who tracks bank robbery trends, told the New York Times that, “it’s well-documented that during a recession bank robberies go up.”

The level of professionalism and the robbers’ take varied in New York, with the bandits getting away with a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. One was nabbed as he tried to make his escape by subway.

In Chicago, the town where Dillinger died, one robbery had the clear mark of an amateur. An account of the robbery merits inclusion in one of comedian Jay Leno’s tributes to “stupid criminals.”

A robber handed a teller a threatening note demanding cash and walked off with $400. But he left behind the note, which not only contained misspellings, but was written on a pay stub provided police with his name and the home address where they arrested him.

Just in case

We are confident that we are preaching to the choir in cautioning against turning to a life of crime as a response to tough times. Nascent bank robbers do not read editorial pages (at least we will refuse to believe they do until it is proven otherwise). But mothers, tell your children, not to do the things Bonnie and Clyde and John and Pretty Boy have done.

We’re in a recession, not a depression. And with security cameras and exploding money packets and GPS devices, the robbery game is a lot tougher than it was in 1933 or 1934. Besides, people don’t write poems about anybody these days, much less about robbers and thieves.