This study aimed at analyzing serial robberies - crime methods, characteristics of serial robbers and victims, situational characteristics of offences - through a survey on serial robberies that have been underestimated compared with its severity in the empirical research. The purpose of this studyis to prevent robberies from all aspects of criminal justice from corrections, probation to investigation as well as to suggest policy measures to root out serial robberies.

The study has been conducted in two methods - analyzing investigation and trial records, and conducting an in-depth interview. The records were based on 1,050 cases of robberies that had been accused from 2011 to 2013. The in depth interview - was conducted on 13 serial robbers who have been incarcerated in Seoul and Gyeonggi province with assistance from correctional facilities.

Majority of serial robbers were in their teens followed by those in their 20s.Most of them were high school graduates or drop-outs, and had six to ten previous convictions - . Serial robbers had various types of past criminal records including robbery; for non-serial robbers, robbery was their first conviction but had high rates of theft in the past. Serial robbery was more likely to be committed by strangers, but victims of non serialrobbers were likely to be victimized by acquaintances. Juvenile offenders accounted for the high percentage of the total serial robbers; 50.7% of their previous crimes were theft, and 82% of past crimes were special robbery and robbery and injury, which indicate the seriousness of the juvenile offence. Most juvenile offenders did not drink, and approached victims through deceit, threat, or inducement at the time of the offence. 64.2% of adult offenders often targeted a female while more than half of juvenile offenders targeteda male to commit a crime.

The research team analyzed the correlation among the types of crime behaviors by using SSA based on 26 types of crime variables. Its results had two types of criminal behaviors - planned and occasional. The ‘planned’ type of offender would carefully planand deliberate his/her crime in advance and approach victims with close attention by using tools or weapons and threaten the victims. The ‘occasional’ type of offender commiteda crime occasionally and their crime was often unskilled and crude. As a result of classifying 1,046 cases of serial robbery into the ‘planned’ and ‘occasional’ crimes, 674 offences were planned accounting for 64.4% of the total crimes and 372 offences (35.6%) were occasional. In other words, the number of planned offenders - who would premeditate his/her crime and threaten victims by using tools or weapons - was much higher than that of occasional offenders. It well shows the characteristics of serial robbery: offender would carefully premeditate the crime such as visiting the place of the offence beforehand andpreparing criminal tools for the offence.The offenders would cover their facefor serial robbery or use tools to avoid beingcaught, which implies that there are more ‘planned’ serial robberies than ‘occasional’ ones.

There was a high rate of recidivism for planned offenders, thus it requires preventive measures through a constant monitoring and supervision even after the offender is released. Most of planned offences were residential break ins particularly - multi family houses. It implies the necessity of formulating measures to prevent - further crimes by identifying whether a series of offence is committed by the same offender through a linkage analysis which sorts out the consistency of criminal behaviors. Occasional offence often occurred in the commercial areas (e.g. street) and most of victims were drunk at the time of the offence. It requires preventive measures to reinforce police activities in the community including patrolling and increase the number of surveillance cameras. Also, it requires strict judicial measures and constant rehabilitation for the offenders as most of them are in their teens.