If you can line up some 80 or 90 year olds to back up this opinion, it might be more interesting. As it stands it seems like ahistorical speculation. I guess maybe Ulrich Beck's work on risk is relevant?
Just look at the way crime sorts itself out, and it's pretty obvious. People robbed banks, got away with murder, disappeared and took up new lives in the circus.
Now? The really pent up people just snap, shoot a bunch of people, and kill themselves, because they know they can't get away with anything anymore.
Reminded The gold rush era song. "Oh what was your name in the states?"
What was your name in the States?
Was it Thompson or Johnson or Bates?
Did you happen to draw on your mother-in-law?
Or sink the old lady with weights, my friend,
Eh, What was you name in the States?...Oh!
He actually _did_ get away with the initial heist, but screwed it up by trying to do it again. Did a few years in prison, but from the sounds of it, the banks only recovered a few million dollars, not the whole amount!
I thought that was an interesting story :) Mild-mannered programmer, biggest heist ever!
Like I mentioned, I couldn't find a definitive set of data concerning unsolved/total bank heists versus unsuccessful heists or arrests.
So I invite you to do what I did, which is look at the list and note how many were either shot, arrested, or otherwise eventually 'failed.'
The post I'm replying to makes it sound like folks got away all the time and that doesn't appear to be the case.
And if nothing else, you can find some interesting details in there. NYC burglaries in the 1850s and 1860s were patronized by a female German-immigrant while she simultaneously hob-knobbed with the society set.
My main point is that I don't think folks 'got away with it' as much as we might like to romanticize.
Now? The really pent up people just snap, shoot a bunch of people, and kill themselves, because they know they can't get away with anything anymore.