Outdoing Bonnie and Clyde

The fastest-growing major crime in the U.S. is not murder, rape or mayhem. It is bank robbery, an increasing frustration for the nation's moneymen. The problem extends from Washington, D.C., where a bank 100 yards from the White House grounds was looted last December, to North Hollywood, Calif., where one bank was recently hit twice in the same day. Last year U.S. banks reported 1,840 robberies, four times the number in 1960. The average bank robber is a lone amateur in his mid-30s. He has an 86% chance of fleeing the bank, but the FBI says that his chances of being arrested later are "great."

Last July, President Johnson signed the Bank Protection Act, which requires federally insured financial institutions to take at least minimal precautions. The first regulation goes into effect this week, when banks must appoint security officers or risk $100-a-day fines. By 1970, banks must supply tellers with marked "bait" money, keep cash on hand to a "reasonable minimum," and install alarms as well as tamper-proof locks on exterior doors and windows. Banks are also urged to install cameras that take thieves' pictures.

The act promises to increase the already brisk sales of bank protection devices. At least 25 major companies make surveillance cameras and recorders that give instant replays. Noting that financial institutions have used similar devices and procedures for years, bankers question whether the federal act will reduce robberies. "It's like legislating against sin," says James B. Griffith, a vice president at California's 380-branch Security Pacific National Bank, which suffered 53 stickups last year.

Masked Men. Decals on doors warning of cameras are ineffective, says Ronald A. Swanson, vice president of California's First Western Bank and Trust Co., because "amateurs just don't know enough to recognize a deterrent." Even if they do, today's bank robbers are far more sophisticated than Bonnie and Clyde. Although retired Boston Bank Robber Teddy Green cheerfully calls cameras "the best weapons the banks have," bankers complain that robbers are too often disguised with ski masks, wigs, dark glasses or turned-up turtleneck sweaters. Officers are also loath to adopt extreme precautions. One that has done so is Washington's aptly named Security Bank. After three robberies at one branch in 55 days last summer, Security decided to lock the front door permanently. Customers enter through a rear door, and tellers work behind tall panes of Plexiglas.

Despite all precautions, bankers believe that their institutions will remain a favorite robbery target because they can be relatively easy and safe to hold up. In Washington, one stickup man admitted that he switched to robbing banks because holding up liquor stores "got to be too dangerous."

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