Criminal career research postulates that offending behaviour develops over time during the course of one’s life. Thus, delinquency is not an isolated incident which occurs at a certain moment in time. This research comprises a mixed-method study of the criminal career of 40 offenders who perpetrated robberies against the banking and CIT industries. Through this research, an exploration is made for possibilities of using criminal career research to develop results which will guide crime prevention policies. The qualitative methodology used for this research included semi-structured interviews in order to collect information on motivations of armed robbers and the various mechanics (i.e. planning, recruitment, group dynamics) of the crime of armed robbery. Through the use of structured questionnaires, biographical data, information on risk factors and figures on the different aspects of a criminal career, such as age of offending onset, offending frequency and seriousness, and career length, were all gathered. The general findings of this research demonstrate that offending onset occurs between the ages of 11 and 15 with petty crimes, and then escalates to serious crimes. Secondly, witnessed throughout the dissertation is the fact that development of delinquent behaviour is not a result of a single risk factor but an outcome of multiple risk factors. Subsequently, a suggestion is made for the introduction of multifaceted deterrence programmes, which will holistically deal with the various offending risk factors (i.e. family, community and the offender’s personal risk factors as well as peer and school dynamics). Thirdly, armed robbers are responsible for various other crimes in the process of committing the offence of robbery. Accordingly, this study confirms the criminal career notion that a small number of chronic offenders are responsible for a large number of offences. That is why it is recommended that policy makers pay attention to disrupting the criminal career of this small number of high risk offenders. / Department of Criminology and Security Science / M.A. (Criminology)

Financial services institutions invest in self–service technologies for various reasons. These include the demands to rationalise costs and to meet the channel preferences of a „technology- savvy‟ client base. Some advantages of self–service technologies (“SSTs”) include the optimisation of staff activities and faster and improved customer services. Retail banks experience various migration-related costs when migrating customers to an SST environment; in terms of both branch infrastructure and the development of employee skills. Some customers continue to favour face-to-face service interactions, which necessitates an identification and evaluation of the necessary skills required by employees to facilitate this migration process. This study aims to both identify and classify the requisite skills needed by financial services professionals to enable them to migrate customers from physical to electronic service channels; including ATMs. With the appropriate training and competencies, employees can guide customers more effectively through the migration process in a non-judgemental way. This would, in turn, address the lack of self-service technology understanding among customers in the longer term. The lack of support from skilled service employees has, in many instances, led to customers paying higher transactional fees and experiencing inconvenience at physical channels, thereby resulting in overall lower self-service usage. / Business Management / DBL

An investigation of the bombing of automated teller machines (ATMs) with intent to steal cash contentof ATMs. This is inclusive of the impact on society (banks clients) and banking institutions as well as the danger it poses to the general public and public and private law enforcement personnel. / (M.Tech. (Security Management))

Criminal career research postulates that offending behaviour develops over time during the course of one’s life. Thus, delinquency is not an isolated incident which occurs at a certain moment in time. This research comprises a mixed-method study of the criminal career of 40 offenders who perpetrated robberies against the banking and CIT industries. Through this research, an exploration is made for possibilities of using criminal career research to develop results which will guide crime prevention policies. The qualitative methodology used for this research included semi-structured interviews in order to collect information on motivations of armed robbers and the various mechanics (i.e. planning, recruitment, group dynamics) of the crime of armed robbery. Through the use of structured questionnaires, biographical data, information on risk factors and figures on the different aspects of a criminal career, such as age of offending onset, offending frequency and seriousness, and career length, were all gathered. The general findings of this research demonstrate that offending onset occurs between the ages of 11 and 15 with petty crimes, and then escalates to serious crimes. Secondly, witnessed throughout the dissertation is the fact that development of delinquent behaviour is not a result of a single risk factor but an outcome of multiple risk factors. Subsequently, a suggestion is made for the introduction of multifaceted deterrence programmes, which will holistically deal with the various offending risk factors (i.e. family, community and the offender’s personal risk factors as well as peer and school dynamics). Thirdly, armed robbers are responsible for various other crimes in the process of committing the offence of robbery. Accordingly, this study confirms the criminal career notion that a small number of chronic offenders are responsible for a large number of offences. That is why it is recommended that policy makers pay attention to disrupting the criminal career of this small number of high risk offenders. / Department of Criminology and Security Science / M.A. (Criminology)

Financial services institutions invest in self–service technologies for various reasons. These include the demands to rationalise costs and to meet the channel preferences of a „technology- savvy‟ client base. Some advantages of self–service technologies (“SSTs”) include the optimisation of staff activities and faster and improved customer services. Retail banks experience various migration-related costs when migrating customers to an SST environment; in terms of both branch infrastructure and the development of employee skills. Some customers continue to favour face-to-face service interactions, which necessitates an identification and evaluation of the necessary skills required by employees to facilitate this migration process. This study aims to both identify and classify the requisite skills needed by financial services professionals to enable them to migrate customers from physical to electronic service channels; including ATMs. With the appropriate training and competencies, employees can guide customers more effectively through the migration process in a non-judgemental way. This would, in turn, address the lack of self-service technology understanding among customers in the longer term. The lack of support from skilled service employees has, in many instances, led to customers paying higher transactional fees and experiencing inconvenience at physical channels, thereby resulting in overall lower self-service usage. / Business Management / DBL