In Maryland, where bank robberies surged last year, lawmakers are considering a bill that would impose stiffer sentences on the perpetrators.
If the bill becomes law before the legislature adjourns next month, Maryland would be one of only a handful of states that punish bank robbers more severely than those who knock off convenience stores or other retail establishments.
The bill, introduced last month, would impose sentences as long as 30 years for armed bank robberies committed by repeat offenders. It would also create much harsher sentences for bank robberies committed by passing a note.
Under present Maryland law, bank robberies are treated like any other. A first-time robber who passes a note - even one with a weapon threat - gets no more than two years in prison, and may get probation. Repeat offenders who use a weapon face up to 20 years, regardless of the target.
Kathleen Murphy, the chief executive officer of the Maryland Bankers Association, said bank robbers should be treated more harshly because banks must have branches in low-income neighborhoods, where most robberies take place.
"Banks really are different from other businesses," she said. "While store owners can choose not to open up in a high-crime neighborhood, banks have made a commitment to community reinvestment and don't have the luxury."
Maryland had 299 bank robberies last year, 28% more than in 2003, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. About half of the last year's robberies were either Baltimore County, which surrounds the city of Baltimore, or Prince George's County, which borders Washington.
Only 25% involved weapons. Sixty-five percent involved notes stating or implying that the passer had a weapon; the remaining 10% used notes with no such threat.
The legislation grew from a meeting of bankers, law enforcement officers, and state officials convened by Edwin F. Hale, the chief executive at the $1.2 billion-asset First Mariner Bancorp in Baltimore. He said he acted after a wave of unarmed robberies at his bank that shocked the tellers but brought only light sentences.
(The Maryland Bankers Association created a bank-robbery task force two years ago and the idea of stricter sentencing had often been discussed, Ms. Murphy said.)
Mr. Hale said he hopes that stiffer sentencing will discourage repeat offenders. "Almost all of them - about 84% - get caught," he said. "So this will make them think twice once they're back on the streets."
Bank robbery is a distinct crime in just five states: Michigan, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. In Virginia armed bank robbery is punishable by 20 years to life, versus five years to life for other armed robberies.
Ms. Murphy said lawmakers have noted that the Delaware-Maryland territory of the FBI's Baltimore field office had more bank robberies per capital last year than that of its Los Angeles office, which usually ranks No. 1.
In the mid-1990s a similar bill was introduced in the Maryland General Assembly but never got anywhere.
Two years ago, after a rise in bank robberies in Massachusetts, legislators there proposed a bill that would make bank robbery a separate crime. The bill died in committee, but a similar version has been filed for this session.
Mathew Street, the American Bankers Association's general counsel on state legislative issues, said that few states have separate laws for bank robberies.
"People don't realize that it is a different sort of crime," he said. There is usually more money at stake in a bank holdup, he noted, and bank robbers are generally repeat offenders.
Pat Dugan, a detective at the FBI's Baltimore field office, said the people who rob banks generally more professional than those who hold up convenience stores or dry cleaners. Last year a gang pulled off six bank robberies in six months in Maryland and Washington and made off with about $350,000 before being caught, in August.
"Bank robbery is a job to some people," said Mr. Dugan. "They will rob a bank, go to jail, and then rob another bank."
