Three Criminals - An Imaginative Exercise

[Ken Cheng]

Follow me through this interesting imaginative exercise concerning three different criminal personalities and the relative threat that each poses to law-abiding people.

Three criminals go to rob a bank together. The robbery is botched, and the three criminals take the people in the bank (both employees and customers alike) hostage, whom they threaten to kill unless the authorities agree to give the robbers amnesty and safe passage.

Here is a description of each criminal's personality:

A). Criminal A is the mastermind behind the robbery. He is a schemer and planner, and the most level-headed and even-tempered of the three. He is not a cruel man, and he doesn't really want to hurt anyone. Nevertheless, he is prepared to do whatever is necessary so that he and his cohorts can escape alive and avoid going to prison.

B). Criminal B is inexperienced in crime. He is jumpy and nervous, and when frightened, he loses control of his temper and will shoot indiscriminately at what he perceives to be the source of his frustration (or, if he can't really identify the source, will lash out randomly). In spite of this, he is not really a cruel person and doesn't want to hurt anyone. He's scared, however, and his reaction to fear is to lash out randomly and violently with no sense of restraint.

C). Criminal C is the most aggressive and brutal of the three criminals. He is utterly ruthless and prepared to kill without the slightest hesitation anyone he believes is obstructing his path to safety and freedom. He uses aggression and fear to get what he wants. That said, he's not jumpy and nervous like Criminal B. He won't shoot randomly just to vent, and he's in control of his actions and emotions.

Question: which of the three criminals poses the greatest threat to the hostages? Who is the most dangerous of the three?

[Trien Chieu]

I think C is the most dangerous as he would do whatever necessary to secure his safety. If he robs the bank it's obviously that there are people in the bank would try to contact authority. Given his personality, he would shoot them if he found out. As for the 3 criminals, they all deserve a bullet in the head.

[wkeej]

Should be Criminal A. Two things: (1) We do not know how he will behave and (2) He will do whatever for the three to escape.

For criminal B and C, so long as we abide by their requests, the hostages should be safe. If I were Criminal A, I will ask one/two hostages to leave with me.

[Banh Mi]

Depending on the scenario each might be more dangerous than the other.

A. Would be most dangerous if his demands are not met because he'll find any means, and he has the capacity.
B. Would be the most dangerous if there was a rescue attempt, or negotiation falls through.
C. Is fixed in terms of potential, so when the other 2 are at their most passive, he would be the most dangerous of the 3, but not by anything he does, only that out of the 3 he is the most stable and predictable, and it would depend on what he wants.

I would be the most wary of A since he is unpredictable. C is completely predictable, and B is predictable in his inpredictability. You can plan scenarios that can factor in the behavior of B and C, but A is a wild card.