Interviews conducted with armed robbers hepl with sceneios

A: Armed robbery was a big joke more or less when I was younger. It ain't no joke now. It's survival. That's how I look at it now. My style is, like, I don't have to be up in nobody's house in case they come in; they might have a pistol in the house or something. It's easier to get caught too because you can leave fingerprints or anything in that type of business. But when you robbing somebody that's selling drugs, that's different. They ain't going to the police. The police gonna say that, 'Okay, this is a drug robbery.We really don't care about this incident. You shouldn't have been out selling this stuff." You see what I'm saying? Like I said, yeah, I've thought about the risks of being caught, but...when you robbing drug dealers, it's a whole different agenda. You stay close to your home. You don't go too far past your boundaries because you don't know about everything. When you around where you live at you know more about it. You know when different people in, you know when the police is around.That's the best place to really stay.Just knowing your boundaries...because you got to get back home to feel safe.

B: Armed robbery is not boring, it gets good. The money, as far as paying bills and stuff like that, robbery is much easier compared to working. It's just like you been living the hustler type of life....and that's just the kind of life we make, that's just it, we want easy money. Minimum wage is seven dollars and twenty-five cents.You work forty hours. By the time you take out taxes and then most places you have to wait two weeks to see two-hundred dollars, and then you got to wait two more weeks. I'm not saying that it's right for me to do what I'm doing, but I'm so used to the easy way of getting money. Education-wise, I fell late on the education. I just think it's too late for that. They say it's never too late, but I'm too far gone for that. I've thought about getting a job, but I'm too far gone, I guess. I done seen more money come out of doing stickups than I see working. I like robbing them drug dealers because it satisfies tow things for me: my thirst for drugs and the financial aspect. I can actually pay my rent, pay for my car, and things like that too. Dope men are perfect victims cause they have all the money on them...They carry all they money, jewelry, and all that on them and all they drugs. That's all I done robbed is drug dealers...they not gonna call the police. What they gonna tell the police? He robbed me for my dope? They is the easiest bait to me. I don't want to harm no innocent people, I just deal basically with drug dealers.

C: If a job were to stop me from committing stickups, it would have to be a straight-up good-paying job. I ain't talking about no seven dollars an hour...I'm talking like twelve to fifteen dollars and hour, something like that. But as far as a seven dollars an hour, no! I would have to get like twelve or fifteen dollars an hour, full-time. Now, something like that, I would probably quit doing stickups. I would be working, making money, I don't think I would do it no more. I wouldn't actually quit; I don't know that I would quit altogether. It would probably slow down and then eventually I'll stop.I think my offending would slow down. I do commit other sorts of offenses, but that ain't my thing. I might do a burglary, but I'm jumping out of my field. See, I'm scared when I do a burglary or something like that. I feel comfortable robbing...but I see something they call "real sweet", like a burglary were the door is open and ain't nobody there or something like that, well....

D: Robbery is the quickest money. Robbery is the most money you gonna get fast...burglary, you gonna have to sell the merchandise and get the money. Drugs, you gonna have to deal with too many people, a bunch of people.You gonna sell a fifty-dollar or hundred dollar bag to him, a fifty-dollar or hundred-dollar bag to him, it takes too long. But if you find where the cash money is and just go take it, you get it all in one wad.No problem. I've tried burglary, I've tried drug selling...the money is too low. If I had $5000, I wouldn't do an armed robbery like tomorrow. But if I got $5000 today and I seen you walking down the street and you look like you got some money in your pocket, I'm gonna take a chance and see. It's just natural...If you see an opportunity, you take that opportunity....It doesn't matter if I have $5000 in my pocket, if I see you walking and no one else is around and it look like you done went in the store and bought something and pulled some money out of your pocket and me or one of my partners has peeped this, we gonna approach you. That's just the way it goes. The best place to do stickups is downtown because there are a lot of big companies down in there, skyscrapers...It's always kind of dark down there for real because they got all them big buildings.

E: Robbery you got a better chance of surviving and getting away than doing other crimes...You go break in a house, the police get the fingerprints, you might lose a shoe, you know how they got all that technology stuff. So I don't break in houses...I leave that to some other guy. When you are robbing drug dealers, the area is normally infested with people, in and out, in and out. So the dealers don't have time to look at everybody that's coming up on them.I would catch them in a situation where they might have just got through handing some drugs off and putting the money in their pocket. As the people who have just bought the drugs are leaving, that's when I would get the dealers...Other people would see this going on, but it's none of their business, they just keep on going. The basic drug dealer, he doesn't do his trade in the best part of town. I wouldn't have to worry about being downtown and some honest person would see me do this. Like I say, I'm good at doing this and I know where to do it. The places that I do my armed robberies at, I don't have to worry about a hardworking person passing by or a person that passes by in a car, sees it, and calls the police. Where I do this type of junk at, nothing but the dregs of society come through.

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