Sponsors (3)
This bill strengthens federal criminal tools and penalties to deter and punish ATM- and bank-related theft and violence—improving protections for users and institutions—but expands federal reach and harsher sentencing, raising incarceration, enforcement, and compliance costs and creating some risks of uneven sentencing and litigation over new statutory language.
People who use or service ATMs, ATM owners, and local communities gain stronger federal penalties and higher maximum sentences for ATM-related robbery, extortion, and related violent assaults, increasing deterrence and enabling more severe accountability for violent incidents at ATMs.
Depository institutions, ATM owners, and law enforcement receive clearer federal protection of ATM property and a federal offense for receipt/possession of ATM-derived property, reducing market incentives for trafficking stolen ATM cash/equipment and aiding prosecutions.
Prosecutors and courts get clearer statutory language on bank-robbery elements (conjunctive vs. disjunctive), reducing legal ambiguity and helping streamline charging decisions and convictions.
Individuals convicted under the new federal ATM offenses face substantially longer prison terms (up to 25–30 years or life in some cases), increasing incarceration populations and long-term costs for taxpayers.
Narrowing or altered bank-robbery elements could allow some perpetrators who used only force or only violence (but not both, depending on wording) to avoid conviction, reducing protections for robbery victims and public safety.
Expanding federal criminal jurisdiction over a broad set of ATM devices shifts prosecutions from state to federal court, increasing DOJ caseloads, federal court resource needs, and related taxpayer-funded litigation and enforcement costs.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates federal ATM-specific robbery/property offenses with tiered penalties, raises assault/homicide penalties tied to ATM crimes, and amends bank-robbery wording to “force or violence.”
Introduced February 5, 2026 by Rafael Edward Cruz · Last progress February 5, 2026
Creates a new federal crime specifically targeting ATM robbery and related offenses, sets tiered penalties for breaking into or tampering with ATMs and for possessing ATM-derived property, and raises maximum sentences for assaults and killings tied to those ATM crimes. It also amends existing federal bank-robbery language by changing “force and violence” to “force or violence” and adds unspecified text to that statute.