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Federal Bureau of Investigation Federal Bureau of Investigation

Robbery

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Definition

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines robbery as the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.

Overview

  • Nationwide in 2010, there were an estimated 367,832 robberies. 
  • The estimated number of robberies decreased 10.0 percent from the 2009 estimate and 18.1 percent from the 2006 estimate. 
  • The 2010 estimated robbery rate of 119.1 per 100,000 inhabitants reflected a decrease of 10.5 percent when compared with the 2009 rate. (See Tables 1 and 1A.) 
  • An estimated $456 million in losses were attributed to robberies in 2010. 
  • The average dollar value of property stolen per reported robbery was $1,239. The highest average dollar loss was for banks, which lost $4,410 per offense. (See Table 23.) 
  • Firearms were used in 41.4 percent of the robberies for which the UCR Program received additional information in 2010. In a nearly equal percentage of robberies (42.0 percent), strong-arm tactics were used, followed by knives and cutting instruments used in 7.9 percent of robberies, and other dangerous weapons used in 8.8 percent of robberies in 2010. (Based on Table 19.) 

Expanded robbery data 

Expanded offense data are the details of the various offenses that the UCR Program collects beyond the count of how many crimes law enforcement agencies report. These details may include the type of weapon used in a crime, type or value of items stolen, and so forth. In addition, expanded data include trends (for example, 2-year comparisons) and rates per 100,000 inhabitants.

Expanded information regarding robbery is available in the following tables:

Trends (2-year): Tables 12, 13, 14, and 15

Rates (per 100,000 inhabitants): Tables 16, 17, 18, and 19

Weapons: Tables 15, 19, and 21

Location Type, average value of items stolen by location per robbery: Table 23

Robbery Table 1, “Robbery, Location, Percent Distribution by Region, 2010”

Robbery Table 2, “Robbery, Location, Percent Distribution by Population Group, 2010”

Robbery Table 3, “Robbery, Types of Weapons Used, Percent Distribution by Region, 2010”

This figure is a pie chart that shows the percentages of robbery offenses by location type in 2010. In the Nation, 43.2 percent of robbery offenses occurred on streets or highways, 17.3 percent occurred at residences, 13.2 percent occurred at commercial houses, 5.2 percent occurred at convenience stores, 2.3 percent occurred at gas or service stations, 2.2 percent occurred at banks, and 16.6 percent occurred at miscellaneous locations.

What you won't find on this page

Clearance and arrest data for robbery offenses.