Am
J Psychiatry
/35:/i,
November
Psychological BY
BRIEF
1978
Observations
DONALD
A. JOHNSTON,
of Bank
bank
robbery
more
often
is a
symptomatic act with psychological meaning. The author describes several ofthe unconscious motives and defense aspects ofbank robbery in the hope that this will assist in demythologizing the bank robber.
BANK
ROBBERIES
receive
a great
deal
ofpublicity.
The
focus ofattention ofthis publicity is rarely on the criminal’s motivation. We hear many details of how the robbery was committed, but the why is often left to Sutton’s law. (When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton replied, ‘That’s where the money is.”) The assumption is that bank robbery is an attempt to get rich, or at least to get enough to live on for a while. I shared these assumptions until 1968, when I was “
‘ ‘
‘
assigned
to
a
federal
penitentiary
for
men
in
Springfield, Mo., and interviewed many bank robbers. My earlier assumptions and the general public’s fantasies about bank robbers were echoed by the inmate population. On the inside, much ofthe inmate’s status is gained from his ‘criminal occupation. In federal prison bank robbers are up near the top; they are penceived as powerful and daring operators. This occurs despite the fact that in closer relationships within the walls many individual bank robbers are regarded as ‘punks’ or ‘dummies. A curious split exists-a man might be regarded from a distance as impressive because he has robbed a bank, but on examination he often turns out to be passive and dependent, sometimes ignorant, often physically unattractive, and not infrequently grossly psychotic. Certain ideas or myths that exist about the bank nobben’s character and actions came down to us from the 1930s, the era of John Dillingen, Alvin Kanpas, Ma Banker, and Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (I). These ideas are promulgated today by movie and television scripts and the drama of news accounts-a shrewd protagonist who fails to remember a significant ‘
‘
‘
Dr. Johnston ty of Colorado
Cob.
‘ ‘
‘
is Assistant Medical
‘ ‘
Clinical Center,
Robbery
M.D.
Bank robbery has been only partially examined in the psychiatric literature. It has been publicly considered an act ofmen ofstrong will to obtain money. According to the author’s observations in a federal penitentiary,
COMMUNICATIONS
Professor of Psychiatry, 4200 East Ninth Ave.,
UniversiDenver,
80262.
0002-953X/78/001
1-1377$0.40
© 1978
detail of his plan is captured under freakish cincurnstances, or a vicious criminal blazes his way in and out of a bank. There are many subplots and twists, but most of these scripts involve a cunning, hard-nosed character who wants the money and is willing to risk the known hazards of security devices, armed guards, a high arrest-and-conviction rate, and very punitive prison sentences (usually 25 years). As my understanding of bank robbers and their crimes became clearer over the two years of my work at the penitentiary I saw that the act of committing a bank robbery often had very little, if any, relationship to the theft of money for personal profit. Rather, I believe that the bank can become an arena where psychological pressures are expressed as highly condensed action. At times the direct acting out ofa drive occurs, while in other instances the robbery serves as a defense against other more overwhelming drives. Robbing
a bank
becomes
the
lesser
of two
internal
evils.
Homosexuality and narcissistic issues of omnipotence and inadequacy are particularly prominent in bank robbery. In some instances the robbery is a direct attempt to be killed or a self-destructive act of revenge. It can be the acting out oftremendous rage displaced from earlier experiences or the gratification of the wish for sadistic excitement. The impulsiveness of bank robbery is remarkable. In 1967, for example, of 2,200 bank robberies, only 453 were committed by men who knew anything at all about the inside operation of their target bank (2). I would like to present some of the cases from which these observations have been drawn. I have divided them into the two broad categories of the acting out of drives and the defense against drives, but there are certainly many overlapping themes.
ACTED-OUT
IMPULSES
Case 1. The most the impulse to suicide erately
successful,
vivid was
of the cases involving acting out that of Mr. A, a 44-year-old mod-
self-employed
attorney.
Catholic, Mr. A considered himself wife and nine children. He had been ual affair:
he no longer
loved
his wife,
very having could
A conservative dedicated to
his
a conflicted
sex-
not
her,
divorce
and feared his affair was about to be found out. He first became depressed and then later feared that Communists were infiltrating the government. Bent on exposing this plot, he wrote long, vague, paranoid letters to newspapers. On the morning of the bank robbery Mr. A told a friend American
Psychiatric
Association
1377
BRIEF
Am
COMMUNICATIONS
that something drastic was about to happen. He went to a bank where he was well known and robbed it with a threat backed by an unloaded 45-caliber automatic pistol. After getting the money he lingered several minutes, allowing for the arrival of the police. He aimed his gun at the police and was shot in the arm. He again threatened to fire and was once more wounded in the arm. He then ran and was finally shot in the leg and captured. After arrest and medical treatment for his wounds Mr. A was sent to the Springfield facility for a sanity evaluation. He was significantly depressed. Ofthe bank robbery he said, “It seemed like I wanted to get myself bumped off. He stated that suicide was impossible for him because it would nullify his insurance. Further, as a devout Catholic he said he could not commit such an act. ‘ ‘
Case 2 In this case there was a strong need to defend against feelings of inadequacy as well as the wish to be killed. Mr. B was the son ofa successful physician father and a doting, protective mother. He felt that his father considered him a weakling. He had obtained a degree in journalism, married a greedy and demeaning woman, and was divorced by her after 7 years. He said her tombstone should read, ‘She wanted more. He felt he could not satisfy her in any way. Following the divorce he became depressed and felt that if he could write a book he would feel better. He was .
‘
‘ ‘
unsuccessful ingesting
pills.
in this
After
a brief
Francisco.
He
desire
to write
hospitalization had
no
and
Mr.
money
attempted
B took
with
him.
suicide
a bus
In
San
trip
by
to San
Francisco
he
walked the streets looking at the impressive hotels and restaurants where he had been in the past, using his father’s money. He walked to the ocean, looked at Alcatraz, and considered suicide by drowning. However, he said, he ‘did not have the guts.” In front of a bank he met a hippie who asked him for a ‘
quarter.
This
because
he
stimulated
a resurgence
realized
he
had
no
of
money.
his
sense
He
told
of
failure
the
hippie,
“Wait a minute, I’ll get some’ and immediately headed into the bank. The hippie realized what was about to happen and ran away. Mr. B saw an armed guard inside the bank, but this did not serve as a deterrent. He got in line at the teller’s window and waited. When it was his turn, he attempted to rob the teller with what he described as a Humphrey Bogart sneer’ and ‘
‘ ‘
his finger
in his pocket
‘
suggesting
that
he had
a weapon.
He
His
wife
Eight his wife,
who
was
aloof
to other
well-mannered
inmate
prisoners.
Case 3. In this case the wish for revenge was prominent. Although the robber exposed himself to risk, the real target of his aggression was his wife. His actions illustrate the dynamics of victory through defeat. Mr. C was 5 1 years old, obese, and had ill-fitting dentures. He felt he was a failure financially, socially, and sexually. He had had two marriages ‘ ‘
‘ ‘
to the same woman wife controlled him it was would
difficult “fiddle
explosions gry
1378
enough
for
and and him
with
which
had never had any ordered him about to
be
directly
chemicals
would
to threaten
frighten divorce,
angry
in the
her.” she
children. constantly. at her,
basement
he
C’s Since
said
making
When would
Mr.
he became put
a stop
he
small on
of him,
divorced
years and,
November
/978
lost
community
status
by
his
him.
later he was in 18 months,
released from did it again-the
prison, same
remarried bank, the
same teller’s cage, and anotherjar of Wesson Oil. This time he wore a dashing Tyrolean hat and a very loud plaid sports coat. He was easily recognized on the second try as ‘the guy who did it before. He was arrested the next day and claimed total amnesia. He kept protesting, How could I have done it: only a fool would have done it again.’ He was ‘
‘ ‘
‘ ‘
‘
captured where cameras.
wearing the same clothes he he had been clearly photographed In prison he spoke of his act
knowing
that
he had
Case
4. This
robberies
were
of a parent
made
man
his wife
felt driven
a repetition
and
to avenge
also
in the bank, the automatic real pleasure,
miserable
again.
his childhood. anger
from
represented
D’s mother had and he blamed
for murdering her. evolved a delusional
wore by with
of displaced
probably
with his father. Mr. during his childhood,
His
early
loss
an identification
died the
in an Army government
hospital doctors
By the time he reached his 20s he had system in which he saw himself as a god. He committed five bank robberies in 2 years, all in the Robin Hood tradition. He would rob the bank and then go ‘ ‘
immediately
to
‘ ‘
the
slums
of the
money to skid-row derelicts. able to do that. To him it
city
and
He said,
‘
represented
‘ ‘
portant to someone was really ‘ ‘government
in need. He money’
redistributing
it he
was
downtrodden.
Perhaps
doing
this
distribute
‘It was
giving
all
terrific
the
to be
something
im-
also believed that the money ‘ and that by reclaiming and good deeds for the poor and
represented
his wish
to undo
the
loss of his mother. The giving away of money to the unfortunate was also a link to his father, who had always given small change to bums, saying, ‘ ‘ It’s a goddamned shame there are guys like that.”
After
disposing
dishes
until
of all the
he
saved
city
in Ohio,
cities
his
robberies
of
residence. bank
with
the
for
he repeated a
implication
around
although
that
bystanders
in the
from
5.
Mr.
he had
were
ticket
to
acts. his
The
father’s
he threatened one:
he believed
the robberies good deeds.
cheering
him
beHe
‘ ‘
on
while
the banks. E’s
sadistic
street
D washed
airplane
the same
circle
a weapon,
Mr.
an
never be shot or harmed during ‘you shouldn’t be hurt while doing
he escaped Case
where used
money
money
formed
He never
tellers
he would
robbery
enough
the next
charged
quiet,
ashamed
and
penitentiary.
a very
was
action,
cause ‘ felt that
was
/35:/i,
checking account. In 1957, in a fit of rage at her, he robbed a neighborhood branch bank with ajar of Wesson Oil. He told the teller it was nitroglycerin. He was well known at the bank and was readily identified, captured, and convicted.
heard a click, turned around, and saw the guard’s cocked pistol next to his face. He remembered feeling that it was “the biggest thing I had ever seen in my life.” At that point, he said, “the fight went out of me,” and he nearly fainted. He was convicted ofbank robbery and sentenced to a federal He
J Psychiatry
case
illustrates
excitement.
He
how was
bank
a small,
robbery plump,
disbellig-
erent, 28-year-old from rural Georgia who had been raised in an orphanage. He was a sadomasochistic homosexual. “I like,’ he said, ‘to screw boys in the ass and bite them.’ He also liked for boys to bite me before sex. If you don’t have pain, you don’t get anything out of it. He disliked women and enjoyed frightening them. A bank with women tellers ‘
‘
‘
‘ ‘
‘ ‘
and customers became a setting for his acting out. On the day of the robbery he took one of his young male lovers with him into the bank and screamed, ‘ ‘ All right, this is it!’ ‘ and emptied an automatic pistol across the ceiling. The noise, chaos, and terror of the women was transiently gratifying. He was apprehended before leaving the bank. In prison he
an-
said
of
his
and
they
his
crime,
would
“I
know
was
my
going
name.”
to
be
somebody.
It was
fun
Am J Psychiatry
/35:/i,
DEFENSES
November
AGAINST
1978
BRIEF
DRIVES
transistor
radio.
animals.
The heading many feelings
following three cases fall under the general ofdefenses against drives. They are typical of similar instances in which deviant sexuality or offailure and inadequacy were significant fea-
tunes
of
bank
robbery
motivation.
6. At age 31, Mr.
F, a single man, robbed two banks was employed as a machinist and had no prehistory. Several days before the robberies,
in 3 days. He vious criminal
Mr.
F underwent
referential the delusion
where
an acute
thinking that
they
psychotic
and feeling his brother’s
both
worked
decompensation
sexually posture
indicated
should
have
driven bank.
to commit
The
a second
youngest
middle-class religious
At age him
that began with 0. in his apartment.
He hid the $1 ,300 proceeds of Two days afterward he felt
robbery
and
of six children,
Mr.
10 he began to
act.
His
hearing sexual
voices identity
who
felt he should was
mosexual ‘ ‘
pleased
the
most
with
Case
to
defended old when give
Mr.
masculine
in the
raised
intermittently tenuous.
told
As
an
ado-
and left his ejaculate by his mother or sisters ‘ ‘ His rare heterosexual in meetings arranged but
F said
thing having
in a
to his family.
Adult
extremely
that
sexual
in so
cxby
grati-
conflicted
his
bank
in my life’ committed
‘
ho-
robberies
and
was
very
them.
lived radio phrase
a beggar
a quarter.
The
fact
that
he
when he was panhandled felt compelled to walk confronted the teller,
anything: seeing
it was
the
teller
him or scare him too much, in my pocket-nitroglycerin.
had
to admit
was such an into the nearest he remembered
my
moment
so
scared.
by odd jobs. commentator ‘
‘ ‘
and
presents
step
small
and
a nearby
tence
was worth
for mankind. insignificant
bank it:
‘
with
‘ ‘
immediately aSlanding on the anything; he he
heard a using the
Mr. H was overwhelmed he
a note.
‘I really
mechanical
small
to myself.”
While passing out handbills, describing the moon landing
‘a giant
how
robbed
felt.
He
Immediately
felt
did something
his
he
20-year
sen-
big, it felt good.”
DISCUSSION
These eight men and their acts provide a broader understanding of bank robbery. It is important to note several points about the selection of these particular cases. Each category was represented by many men in custody; in fact, after a time, I found myself searching for the ‘normal” bank robbers, those solely motivated by Sutton’s law. I found few. My sample of cases came from a federal evaluation and treatment center and, obviously, did not include any successful bank robbers who had avoided conviction. I would estimate that I came in contact with more than 200 bank robbers in a 2-year period. I do not want to underestimate the sense of failure and inadequacy of this population of criminal offenders. Many ofthe men had chaotic and lonely experiences in childhood and adolescence. Frequently a severe psychosis rendered the accused chronically incompetent to stand trial. Of the men convicted, a few had little real sense of the number of years involved in ‘
serving
of desI didn’t
but I told him that I He was given ‘ ‘
$3,000 and, frightened by what he had done, caught a plane to Hawaii. Once there, he immediately turned himselfin and returned the remaining money. As a child Mr. G had been deserted by his mother and raised in an orphanage called the New England Home for Little Wanderers. He had had a close relationship with his grandfather, a kindly Italian barber who died at about the same time he was abandoned. He felt that no matter how hard he tried, he could never be as good as his grandfather. When he left the orphanage he wandered, living out the orphanage’s name. He was never without his teddy bear and
a bank
structure Above act
G exemplifies a situation of narcissistic inby impulsive, grandiose action. He was he, like Mr. B, robbed a bank in San Fran-
that he had no money internal defeat that he bank and rob it. As he thinking, ‘ ‘I could do tiny. I really felt bad,
want to hurt had a bomb
for
that
his virginity.
occasional
himself
7. Mr.
adequacy 30 years cisco
through
lose
encounters.
were
F had been
was
lescent he compulsively masturbated the hope it would be discovered “they would know I was a man. periences had been with prostitutes fication
arrested
family in South America. He was close mother and was treated as the baby of the
how
men
was
candy
were
homo-
sexual intercourse. He began to receive messages from television sets, restaurant waiters, and police officers that he should rob a bank. Feeling it was ‘ ‘something I must do,’ ‘ Mr. F walked into a suburban branch bank with a note stating he had a weapon. He had never seen the bank before: he selected it because it was on a street that began with an 0, and a woman he knew
had a name the robbery
shoplifted
these
with
stimulated. He had in the machine shop
they
He
said
Case 8. Mr. H impulsively robbed a bank ter he heard the news of Neil Armstrong’s moon. Mr. H felt he had never accomplished
by
Case
He
COMMUNICATIONS
that
robbery
sentence.
of prison life all, it became is more
seemed clear
complicated
For
some,
the
rigid
to be a comfort. that bank robbery than
a simple
is an
means
of
getting money. It is decidedly a part of intrapsychic life and an attempt to resolve conflict. Certainly some bank robbers are dangerous men who require segregation from society. However, many others receive long sentences for acts that were meant to injure themselves. These men exchange 20 to 25 years of their lives for behavior intended to restore their intrapsychic equilibrium. It is remarkable that the mythology of bank robbery continues
to
persist
in
the
face
of
obvious
con-
tradictions. Bank robbery is easy. Banks are plentiful, accessible, and can be robbed on impulse with a finger in a coat pocket. The myths prevent a careful evaluation of these criminal offenders and impair more flexible decisions on treatment and incarceration.
REFERENCES 1. Macdonald Springfield, 2. FBI Law
IM: Armed Ill, Charles Enforcement
Robbery, Offenders C Thomas, 1975 Bulletin, November,
and Their
Victims.
1967
1379
J Psychiatry
/35:/i,
November
Psychological BY
BRIEF
1978
Observations
DONALD
A. JOHNSTON,
of Bank
bank
robbery
more
often
is a
symptomatic act with psychological meaning. The author describes several ofthe unconscious motives and defense aspects ofbank robbery in the hope that this will assist in demythologizing the bank robber.
BANK
ROBBERIES
receive
a great
deal
ofpublicity.
The
focus ofattention ofthis publicity is rarely on the criminal’s motivation. We hear many details of how the robbery was committed, but the why is often left to Sutton’s law. (When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton replied, ‘That’s where the money is.”) The assumption is that bank robbery is an attempt to get rich, or at least to get enough to live on for a while. I shared these assumptions until 1968, when I was “
‘ ‘
‘
assigned
to
a
federal
penitentiary
for
men
in
Springfield, Mo., and interviewed many bank robbers. My earlier assumptions and the general public’s fantasies about bank robbers were echoed by the inmate population. On the inside, much ofthe inmate’s status is gained from his ‘criminal occupation. In federal prison bank robbers are up near the top; they are penceived as powerful and daring operators. This occurs despite the fact that in closer relationships within the walls many individual bank robbers are regarded as ‘punks’ or ‘dummies. A curious split exists-a man might be regarded from a distance as impressive because he has robbed a bank, but on examination he often turns out to be passive and dependent, sometimes ignorant, often physically unattractive, and not infrequently grossly psychotic. Certain ideas or myths that exist about the bank nobben’s character and actions came down to us from the 1930s, the era of John Dillingen, Alvin Kanpas, Ma Banker, and Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (I). These ideas are promulgated today by movie and television scripts and the drama of news accounts-a shrewd protagonist who fails to remember a significant ‘
‘
‘
Dr. Johnston ty of Colorado
Cob.
‘ ‘
‘
is Assistant Medical
‘ ‘
Clinical Center,
Robbery
M.D.
Bank robbery has been only partially examined in the psychiatric literature. It has been publicly considered an act ofmen ofstrong will to obtain money. According to the author’s observations in a federal penitentiary,
COMMUNICATIONS
Professor of Psychiatry, 4200 East Ninth Ave.,
UniversiDenver,
80262.
0002-953X/78/001
1-1377$0.40
© 1978
detail of his plan is captured under freakish cincurnstances, or a vicious criminal blazes his way in and out of a bank. There are many subplots and twists, but most of these scripts involve a cunning, hard-nosed character who wants the money and is willing to risk the known hazards of security devices, armed guards, a high arrest-and-conviction rate, and very punitive prison sentences (usually 25 years). As my understanding of bank robbers and their crimes became clearer over the two years of my work at the penitentiary I saw that the act of committing a bank robbery often had very little, if any, relationship to the theft of money for personal profit. Rather, I believe that the bank can become an arena where psychological pressures are expressed as highly condensed action. At times the direct acting out ofa drive occurs, while in other instances the robbery serves as a defense against other more overwhelming drives. Robbing
a bank
becomes
the
lesser
of two
internal
evils.
Homosexuality and narcissistic issues of omnipotence and inadequacy are particularly prominent in bank robbery. In some instances the robbery is a direct attempt to be killed or a self-destructive act of revenge. It can be the acting out oftremendous rage displaced from earlier experiences or the gratification of the wish for sadistic excitement. The impulsiveness of bank robbery is remarkable. In 1967, for example, of 2,200 bank robberies, only 453 were committed by men who knew anything at all about the inside operation of their target bank (2). I would like to present some of the cases from which these observations have been drawn. I have divided them into the two broad categories of the acting out of drives and the defense against drives, but there are certainly many overlapping themes.
ACTED-OUT
IMPULSES
Case 1. The most the impulse to suicide erately
successful,
vivid was
of the cases involving acting out that of Mr. A, a 44-year-old mod-
self-employed
attorney.
Catholic, Mr. A considered himself wife and nine children. He had been ual affair:
he no longer
loved
his wife,
very having could
A conservative dedicated to
his
a conflicted
sex-
not
her,
divorce
and feared his affair was about to be found out. He first became depressed and then later feared that Communists were infiltrating the government. Bent on exposing this plot, he wrote long, vague, paranoid letters to newspapers. On the morning of the bank robbery Mr. A told a friend American
Psychiatric
Association
1377
BRIEF
Am
COMMUNICATIONS
that something drastic was about to happen. He went to a bank where he was well known and robbed it with a threat backed by an unloaded 45-caliber automatic pistol. After getting the money he lingered several minutes, allowing for the arrival of the police. He aimed his gun at the police and was shot in the arm. He again threatened to fire and was once more wounded in the arm. He then ran and was finally shot in the leg and captured. After arrest and medical treatment for his wounds Mr. A was sent to the Springfield facility for a sanity evaluation. He was significantly depressed. Ofthe bank robbery he said, “It seemed like I wanted to get myself bumped off. He stated that suicide was impossible for him because it would nullify his insurance. Further, as a devout Catholic he said he could not commit such an act. ‘ ‘
Case 2 In this case there was a strong need to defend against feelings of inadequacy as well as the wish to be killed. Mr. B was the son ofa successful physician father and a doting, protective mother. He felt that his father considered him a weakling. He had obtained a degree in journalism, married a greedy and demeaning woman, and was divorced by her after 7 years. He said her tombstone should read, ‘She wanted more. He felt he could not satisfy her in any way. Following the divorce he became depressed and felt that if he could write a book he would feel better. He was .
‘
‘ ‘
unsuccessful ingesting
pills.
in this
After
a brief
Francisco.
He
desire
to write
hospitalization had
no
and
Mr.
money
attempted
B took
with
him.
suicide
a bus
In
San
trip
by
to San
Francisco
he
walked the streets looking at the impressive hotels and restaurants where he had been in the past, using his father’s money. He walked to the ocean, looked at Alcatraz, and considered suicide by drowning. However, he said, he ‘did not have the guts.” In front of a bank he met a hippie who asked him for a ‘
quarter.
This
because
he
stimulated
a resurgence
realized
he
had
no
of
money.
his
sense
He
told
of
failure
the
hippie,
“Wait a minute, I’ll get some’ and immediately headed into the bank. The hippie realized what was about to happen and ran away. Mr. B saw an armed guard inside the bank, but this did not serve as a deterrent. He got in line at the teller’s window and waited. When it was his turn, he attempted to rob the teller with what he described as a Humphrey Bogart sneer’ and ‘
‘ ‘
his finger
in his pocket
‘
suggesting
that
he had
a weapon.
He
His
wife
Eight his wife,
who
was
aloof
to other
well-mannered
inmate
prisoners.
Case 3. In this case the wish for revenge was prominent. Although the robber exposed himself to risk, the real target of his aggression was his wife. His actions illustrate the dynamics of victory through defeat. Mr. C was 5 1 years old, obese, and had ill-fitting dentures. He felt he was a failure financially, socially, and sexually. He had had two marriages ‘ ‘
‘ ‘
to the same woman wife controlled him it was would
difficult “fiddle
explosions gry
1378
enough
for
and and him
with
which
had never had any ordered him about to
be
directly
chemicals
would
to threaten
frighten divorce,
angry
in the
her.” she
children. constantly. at her,
basement
he
C’s Since
said
making
When would
Mr.
he became put
a stop
he
small on
of him,
divorced
years and,
November
/978
lost
community
status
by
his
him.
later he was in 18 months,
released from did it again-the
prison, same
remarried bank, the
same teller’s cage, and anotherjar of Wesson Oil. This time he wore a dashing Tyrolean hat and a very loud plaid sports coat. He was easily recognized on the second try as ‘the guy who did it before. He was arrested the next day and claimed total amnesia. He kept protesting, How could I have done it: only a fool would have done it again.’ He was ‘
‘ ‘
‘ ‘
‘
captured where cameras.
wearing the same clothes he he had been clearly photographed In prison he spoke of his act
knowing
that
he had
Case
4. This
robberies
were
of a parent
made
man
his wife
felt driven
a repetition
and
to avenge
also
in the bank, the automatic real pleasure,
miserable
again.
his childhood. anger
from
represented
D’s mother had and he blamed
for murdering her. evolved a delusional
wore by with
of displaced
probably
with his father. Mr. during his childhood,
His
early
loss
an identification
died the
in an Army government
hospital doctors
By the time he reached his 20s he had system in which he saw himself as a god. He committed five bank robberies in 2 years, all in the Robin Hood tradition. He would rob the bank and then go ‘ ‘
immediately
to
‘ ‘
the
slums
of the
money to skid-row derelicts. able to do that. To him it
city
and
He said,
‘
represented
‘ ‘
portant to someone was really ‘ ‘government
in need. He money’
redistributing
it he
was
downtrodden.
Perhaps
doing
this
distribute
‘It was
giving
all
terrific
the
to be
something
im-
also believed that the money ‘ and that by reclaiming and good deeds for the poor and
represented
his wish
to undo
the
loss of his mother. The giving away of money to the unfortunate was also a link to his father, who had always given small change to bums, saying, ‘ ‘ It’s a goddamned shame there are guys like that.”
After
disposing
dishes
until
of all the
he
saved
city
in Ohio,
cities
his
robberies
of
residence. bank
with
the
for
he repeated a
implication
around
although
that
bystanders
in the
from
5.
Mr.
he had
were
ticket
to
acts. his
The
father’s
he threatened one:
he believed
the robberies good deeds.
cheering
him
beHe
‘ ‘
on
while
the banks. E’s
sadistic
street
D washed
airplane
the same
circle
a weapon,
Mr.
an
never be shot or harmed during ‘you shouldn’t be hurt while doing
he escaped Case
where used
money
money
formed
He never
tellers
he would
robbery
enough
the next
charged
quiet,
ashamed
and
penitentiary.
a very
was
action,
cause ‘ felt that
was
/35:/i,
checking account. In 1957, in a fit of rage at her, he robbed a neighborhood branch bank with ajar of Wesson Oil. He told the teller it was nitroglycerin. He was well known at the bank and was readily identified, captured, and convicted.
heard a click, turned around, and saw the guard’s cocked pistol next to his face. He remembered feeling that it was “the biggest thing I had ever seen in my life.” At that point, he said, “the fight went out of me,” and he nearly fainted. He was convicted ofbank robbery and sentenced to a federal He
J Psychiatry
case
illustrates
excitement.
He
how was
bank
a small,
robbery plump,
disbellig-
erent, 28-year-old from rural Georgia who had been raised in an orphanage. He was a sadomasochistic homosexual. “I like,’ he said, ‘to screw boys in the ass and bite them.’ He also liked for boys to bite me before sex. If you don’t have pain, you don’t get anything out of it. He disliked women and enjoyed frightening them. A bank with women tellers ‘
‘
‘
‘ ‘
‘ ‘
and customers became a setting for his acting out. On the day of the robbery he took one of his young male lovers with him into the bank and screamed, ‘ ‘ All right, this is it!’ ‘ and emptied an automatic pistol across the ceiling. The noise, chaos, and terror of the women was transiently gratifying. He was apprehended before leaving the bank. In prison he
an-
said
of
his
and
they
his
crime,
would
“I
know
was
my
going
name.”
to
be
somebody.
It was
fun
Am J Psychiatry
/35:/i,
DEFENSES
November
AGAINST
1978
BRIEF
DRIVES
transistor
radio.
animals.
The heading many feelings
following three cases fall under the general ofdefenses against drives. They are typical of similar instances in which deviant sexuality or offailure and inadequacy were significant fea-
tunes
of
bank
robbery
motivation.
6. At age 31, Mr.
F, a single man, robbed two banks was employed as a machinist and had no prehistory. Several days before the robberies,
in 3 days. He vious criminal
Mr.
F underwent
referential the delusion
where
an acute
thinking that
they
psychotic
and feeling his brother’s
both
worked
decompensation
sexually posture
indicated
should
have
driven bank.
to commit
The
a second
youngest
middle-class religious
At age him
that began with 0. in his apartment.
He hid the $1 ,300 proceeds of Two days afterward he felt
robbery
and
of six children,
Mr.
10 he began to
act.
His
hearing sexual
voices identity
who
felt he should was
mosexual ‘ ‘
pleased
the
most
with
Case
to
defended old when give
Mr.
masculine
in the
raised
intermittently tenuous.
told
As
an
ado-
and left his ejaculate by his mother or sisters ‘ ‘ His rare heterosexual in meetings arranged but
F said
thing having
in a
to his family.
Adult
extremely
that
sexual
in so
cxby
grati-
conflicted
his
bank
in my life’ committed
‘
ho-
robberies
and
was
very
them.
lived radio phrase
a beggar
a quarter.
The
fact
that
he
when he was panhandled felt compelled to walk confronted the teller,
anything: seeing
it was
the
teller
him or scare him too much, in my pocket-nitroglycerin.
had
to admit
was such an into the nearest he remembered
my
moment
so
scared.
by odd jobs. commentator ‘
‘ ‘
and
presents
step
small
and
a nearby
tence
was worth
for mankind. insignificant
bank it:
‘
with
‘ ‘
immediately aSlanding on the anything; he he
heard a using the
Mr. H was overwhelmed he
a note.
‘I really
mechanical
small
to myself.”
While passing out handbills, describing the moon landing
‘a giant
how
robbed
felt.
He
Immediately
felt
did something
his
he
20-year
sen-
big, it felt good.”
DISCUSSION
These eight men and their acts provide a broader understanding of bank robbery. It is important to note several points about the selection of these particular cases. Each category was represented by many men in custody; in fact, after a time, I found myself searching for the ‘normal” bank robbers, those solely motivated by Sutton’s law. I found few. My sample of cases came from a federal evaluation and treatment center and, obviously, did not include any successful bank robbers who had avoided conviction. I would estimate that I came in contact with more than 200 bank robbers in a 2-year period. I do not want to underestimate the sense of failure and inadequacy of this population of criminal offenders. Many ofthe men had chaotic and lonely experiences in childhood and adolescence. Frequently a severe psychosis rendered the accused chronically incompetent to stand trial. Of the men convicted, a few had little real sense of the number of years involved in ‘
serving
of desI didn’t
but I told him that I He was given ‘ ‘
$3,000 and, frightened by what he had done, caught a plane to Hawaii. Once there, he immediately turned himselfin and returned the remaining money. As a child Mr. G had been deserted by his mother and raised in an orphanage called the New England Home for Little Wanderers. He had had a close relationship with his grandfather, a kindly Italian barber who died at about the same time he was abandoned. He felt that no matter how hard he tried, he could never be as good as his grandfather. When he left the orphanage he wandered, living out the orphanage’s name. He was never without his teddy bear and
a bank
structure Above act
G exemplifies a situation of narcissistic inby impulsive, grandiose action. He was he, like Mr. B, robbed a bank in San Fran-
that he had no money internal defeat that he bank and rob it. As he thinking, ‘ ‘I could do tiny. I really felt bad,
want to hurt had a bomb
for
that
his virginity.
occasional
himself
7. Mr.
adequacy 30 years cisco
through
lose
encounters.
were
F had been
was
lescent he compulsively masturbated the hope it would be discovered “they would know I was a man. periences had been with prostitutes fication
arrested
family in South America. He was close mother and was treated as the baby of the
how
men
was
candy
were
homo-
sexual intercourse. He began to receive messages from television sets, restaurant waiters, and police officers that he should rob a bank. Feeling it was ‘ ‘something I must do,’ ‘ Mr. F walked into a suburban branch bank with a note stating he had a weapon. He had never seen the bank before: he selected it because it was on a street that began with an 0, and a woman he knew
had a name the robbery
shoplifted
these
with
stimulated. He had in the machine shop
they
He
said
Case 8. Mr. H impulsively robbed a bank ter he heard the news of Neil Armstrong’s moon. Mr. H felt he had never accomplished
by
Case
He
COMMUNICATIONS
that
robbery
sentence.
of prison life all, it became is more
seemed clear
complicated
For
some,
the
rigid
to be a comfort. that bank robbery than
a simple
is an
means
of
getting money. It is decidedly a part of intrapsychic life and an attempt to resolve conflict. Certainly some bank robbers are dangerous men who require segregation from society. However, many others receive long sentences for acts that were meant to injure themselves. These men exchange 20 to 25 years of their lives for behavior intended to restore their intrapsychic equilibrium. It is remarkable that the mythology of bank robbery continues
to
persist
in
the
face
of
obvious
con-
tradictions. Bank robbery is easy. Banks are plentiful, accessible, and can be robbed on impulse with a finger in a coat pocket. The myths prevent a careful evaluation of these criminal offenders and impair more flexible decisions on treatment and incarceration.
REFERENCES 1. Macdonald Springfield, 2. FBI Law
IM: Armed Ill, Charles Enforcement
Robbery, Offenders C Thomas, 1975 Bulletin, November,
and Their
Victims.
1967
1379
