More than 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Many of these videos tell about unique situations: we see how revolutions take place, how babies are born and how tsunamis are destroying entire cities … Often, Internet users stuck on the screen for hours, or even days, watching interesting videos. And scientists approached the issue from a professional point of view, they found that the "all-seeing eye" can provide unique material for the study of behavioral psychology.
Anna Nassauer, professor of sociology at the John F Kennedy Institute at the Free University in Berlin, based her scientific work on the analysis of the recordings of 24-hour video surveillance cameras that are installed in retail outlets. As a result, a study was born called "How robbers succeed and why they fail."
Guy Ritchie and the Big Jackpot
The researcher decided to follow in the footsteps of Guy Ritchie, the director of the cult crime thriller Big Jackpot. As you know, the idiotic situations that the gang of hapless gangsters from this film find themselves in are taken from real life. Videos of ridiculous robberies gave Anna ample food for thought.
She cites an attempted robbery of a small California store as a prime example. Two robbers burst into a cramped room, one of them holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle. However, further the raid did not go according to the script. First, the cry "Life or wallet!" turned out to be addressless, since the owner of the eatery was not at the cash register, but at the shelves with groceries. And secondly, the appearance of tough guys with a gun in the shop, where they can only count on a penny earnings, looked so comical in the eyes of the owner that he … laughed behind their backs. "I asked them: guys, are you serious ?!" - said the owner of the store later. However, an innocent remark was enough for one of the crooks to retreat, and the second fell into a state of stupor, in which he remained until the appearance of the police. Then it turned outthat the criminals were by no means amateurs, they had many successful robberies on their account.
Attempted robbery in California:
Promotional video:
In another case, the salesperson was so caught up in the phone call that she ignored the raider's demands. And when, the poor fellow tried to push a pistol through the window to scare a lively citizen, she simply took away his weapon.
Unsuccessful attempted robbery:
O. Henry and rheumatism
“It’s a lot of stress for a person to become a victim of an attack,” explains Anna Nassauer. - During a robbery, many are so afraid for their lives that PTSD haunts them for many months. However, studies by criminologists have shown that in about one in three cases, bandits are repulsed and robbery fails. The study of the video, where you can see every detail - postures, facial expressions, gestures of people, their response to events - helped to understand why this happens. The robbery can only be successful if all the actors play their roles in this ritual. The perpetrator lives up to his status as an evil, confident and fearful aggressor, while the clerk looks like a frightened and submissive victim. But as soon as some trifle breaks the stereotypical development of events, the whole structure collapses.
As soon as the perpetrator leaves the image of the sinister fiend of hell for even a minute, the victim of the attack ceases to see him as a source of danger. However, this collision was at one time described in the story "Kindred Souls" by O. Henry, when, in response to the robber's command "Hands up", the owner of the house replies that he can only raise one hand, since the other was taken away due to rheumatism. It turned out that the victim and the robber are comrades in misfortune, because the criminal also suffers from rheumatism. The case ended with the fact that both went to wash their acquaintance in the nearest bar.
Something similar happened in 2010 in Florida, when an attempted store robbery turned into a heart-to-heart conversation between a criminal and a young saleswoman. They discuss how it is possible to improve financial affairs in a legal way, then the robber, eaten by pangs of conscience, leaves with an apology, and the girl shouts after him "May Jesus help you!"
Surveillance footage of failed attacks has helped us understand how social procedures work, how much we tend to play our assigned roles in life. And how useful it is from time to time to take a step beyond the routine rules - at least to try to discern a person in a stranger. Sometimes it can save money, and sometimes life.
Attempted robbery in Florida:
YAROSLAV KOROBATOV