The Best Way to Rob a Bank
Abstract
Cohen and Machalek’s (1988) evolutionary ecological theory of crime explains why obscure forms of predation can be the most lucrative. Sutherland explained that it is better to rob a bank at the point of a pen than of a gun. The US Savings and Loans scandal of the 1980s suggested ‘the best way to rob a bank is to own one’. Lure constituted by the anomie of warfare and transition to capitalism in former Yugoslavia revealed that the best way to rob a bank is to control the regulatory system: that is, to control a central bank. This makes possible theft of all the people’s money in a society. The criminological imagination must attune to anomie created by capitalism, and to the evolutionary ecology of lure.
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Published: 2018-03-01
Issue:Vol. 7 No. 1 (2018)
Pages:123
to 138
Section:Articles
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How to Cite
Marsavelski, A. and Braithwaite, J. (2018) “The Best Way to Rob a Bank”, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 7(1), pp. 123-138. doi: 10.5204/ijcjsd.v7i1.466.
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