Criminologist and crime researcher, Dr. Jones Opoku-Ware, has raised concerns about the spate of robberies in the country, stating that there has been an evolution in patterns.
In an interview on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem, he said that initially, most robberies occurred in homes, but now they are happening on the streets in broad daylight.
He explained that robbers have discovered there is a lot of money on the streets, making people more vulnerable.
Dr. Opoku-Ware made this observation in connection with the rising attacks on Mobile Money (MoMo) vendors in the country.
“If you check the data, there has been a change in the pattern. We used to record more residential robberies, but for over seven years now, there are more street robberies. In criminology, we have something called crime attractors and generators; cash is the key factor in this.
“So with the extent to which people are transacting businesses and moving cash on the streets, it sends signals to the criminals and raises some form of alert because money is on the street,” he stated.
Dr. Opoku-Ware noted that these attacks often have about a 95 percent success rate without any hindrance due to the robbers’ operational methods.
According to him, the robbers tend to be violent during such missions because it makes their operation easier.
“It is a psychological game robbers play on their victims because they know people can pounce on them on the street. So to manipulate people within their limited time, they will first instill fear at the scene through shooting to gain access for a successful operation,” he said.
Going forward, he cautioned people to be careful and re-strategize how they transact businesses on the streets.
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