{"id":610,"date":"2025-09-16T11:32:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T07:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/hub\/?p=610"},"modified":"2025-10-22T21:53:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:53:45","slug":"los-angeles-bank-robberies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/hub\/society-culture\/history\/los-angeles-bank-robberies\/","title":{"rendered":"The L.A. Bank Robberies: A Societal Epidemic (Gladwell)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\"><em>Image created with AI<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 1980s, Los Angeles became America&#8217;s bank robbery capital. Using this as an example, Malcolm Gladwell explores why certain harmful trends seem to explode in one city but barely register anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just like some people are biological superspreaders who unknowingly infect many others, certain individuals can trigger waves of copycat behavior that reshape entire communities. The story of the L.A. bank robbery craze reveals the surprising power these social superspreaders wield\u2014and why their influence often stays surprisingly local.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-yoast-seo-table-of-contents yoast-table-of-contents\"><h2>Table of Contents<\/h2><ul><li><a href=\"#h-societal-superspreaders\" data-level=\"2\">Societal Superspreaders<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#h-case-study-the-los-angeles-bank-robberies\" data-level=\"3\">Case Study: The Los Angeles Bank Robberies<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#h-learn-more-about-societal-epidemics\" data-level=\"2\">Learn More About Societal Epidemics<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-societal-superspreaders\">Societal Superspreaders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/revenge-of-the-tipping-point\/preview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Revenge of the Tipping Point<\/a><\/em>, Malcolm Gladwell identifies three major factors that lead to social \u201cepidemics\u201d and provides case studies highlighting each. One factor comes directly from epidemiology\u2014<strong><em>superspreaders<\/em>: people who, by quirks of biology or environment, are disproportionately effective at spreading contagions to others<\/strong>. Gladwell points to the historic epidemic of bank robberies in Los Angeles as an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: The term \u201csuperspreader\u201d was first used in 1972 as a reference to variables in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/laninf\/article\/PIIS1473-3099(23)00183-4\/fulltext\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">computer simulations of flu epidemics<\/a>, though the meaning later grew to include individuals with a higher likelihood to trigger disease outbreaks, whether due to biology (Gladwell\u2019s definition), social connections, or mere bad luck. The concept came into popular use during <a href=\"https:\/\/sph.tulane.edu\/researchers-unravel-what-makes-someone-covid-19-super-spreader\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Covid-19 outbreak<\/a>, but some doctors argue that the prototypical superspreader in the public consciousness\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/medicalmuseum.health.mil\/micrograph\/index.cfm\/posts\/2020\/typhoid_mary_mary_mallon_salmonella\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">\u201cTyphoid Mary\u201d Mallon<\/a>\u2014wasn\u2019t an actual superspreader at all. Mallon carried the bacteria that causes Typhoid. But, though she unknowingly infected dozens of people, <a href=\"https:\/\/ajph.aphapublications.org\/doi\/abs\/10.2105\/AJPH.2023.307434?journalCode=ajph\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">she was never the cause of a Typhoid outbreak<\/a>, one of the key superspreader characteristics.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, spreading illness to others is never these people\u2019s <em>intent<\/em>; it just happens. However, in studies of biological diseases, it\u2019s been shown that not every infected person infects others at the same rate. Some don\u2019t pass on their illnesses at all, whereas outliers at the other end of the spectrum can inadvertently affect a comparatively high percentage of the people they come in contact with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-case-study-the-los-angeles-bank-robberies\">Case Study: The Los Angeles Bank Robberies<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The connection Gladwell makes to the spread of societal diseases is this: <strong>Harmful trends in society can often be traced to a handful of bad actors<\/strong> with a disproportionate impact on other people\u2019s behavior. To illustrate this, Gladwell describes an \u201cepidemic\u201d of bank robberies that began during the 1980s in Los Angeles. The number of actual bank robbers was few. But, once a handful of them were successful (and word of their success spread throughout the local press), other criminal elements in the city latched on to the idea of robbing banks as being lucrative. As a result, for the better part of two decades, Los Angeles led the nation in bank robberies per capita by a significant margin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: The spike in bank robberies Gladwell writes about wasn\u2019t the first such trend. The first significant wave of bank robberies in the US <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crimemuseum.org\/crime-library\/robberies\/history-of-bank-robberies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">took place during the \u201cWild West\u201d era<\/a>, starting in the late 1860s after the American Civil War. The next notable phase occurred during the 1920s and \u201930s, coinciding with the Prohibition era, the Great Depression, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/history\/brief-history\/the-fbi-and-the-american-gangster\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the beginnings of the Federal Bureau of Investigation<\/a>. As Gladwell notes in the 1980s outbreak, during each of these earlier crime waves, the robbers themselves were few enough that they often became infamous celebrities, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebsco.com\/research-starters\/biography\/butch-cassidy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Butch Cassidy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/history\/famous-cases\/john-dillinger\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">John Dillinger<\/a>, and the bank-robbing duo of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/history\/famous-cases\/bonnie-and-clyde\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What Gladwell finds curious is that the 1980s\u2019 robbery craze remained confined to Los Angeles\u2014no other US metro area saw a similar uptick in bank attacks. From this, he concludes that <strong>though superspreaders have an oversized impact, their reach is limited.<\/strong> Even in the earlier example of Miami\u2019s rampant insurance fraud, the unusually high rate of that particular crime remained localized to southern Florida. This regional variation in how social problems spread, perhaps defined by differences in each community\u2019s overarching narrative, can create a useful buffer to keep similar problematic issues from spreading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: In addition to affecting the spread of social issues, the regional variations Gladwell points to can also impact the solutions to such problems. For instance, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/nudge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Nudge<\/em><\/a>, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein explore various ways of framing issues <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/nudge#nudges\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">to gently \u201cnudge\u201d society in a positive direction<\/a>. However, research now suggests that the regional differences Gladwell highlights <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-024-65765-z\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">can greatly alter how effective societal \u201cnudges\u201d are<\/a> in any given area and must be taken into account when attempting to change society for the better.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-learn-more-about-societal-epidemics\">Learn More About Societal Epidemics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To better understand the Los Angeles bank robbery craze in its broader societal context, check out our guide to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/app\/book\/revenge-of-the-tipping-point\/preview\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Revenge of the Tipping Point<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Los Angeles became America&#8217;s bank robbery capital in the 1980s. Here&#8217;s Malcolm Gladwell&#8217;s analysis that points to an intriguing social issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-society-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The L.A. Bank Robberies: A Societal Epidemic (Gladwell) - Shortform Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Los Angeles became America&#039;s bank robbery capital in the 1980s. 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