My wife and I were Honeymooning in Paris, purchasing subway passes from an automated kiosk, when a guy who was pretending to be really interested in his phone started getting uncomfortably close to her. She felt him touch her, so she elbowed him real hard, knocking the phone out of his hand, and yelling, “Oh no, are you OK, I’m so sorry, I broke your phone!” real loud (which was true, she cracked his screen). I don’t think he was expecting a 5’2" woman to assault him, because he grabbed his broken phone and started booking it before I could react.
A very nice Parisian came over and told us we needed to be more careful and watch ouf for thieves. We thanked him, but my wife was laughing a few moments later because she just assumed he was a pervert. I thought maybe the phone screen had already been broken, and he was trying to run some sort of, “Hey, you broke my phone, give me money!” scam but chickened out when he saw how aggressively my wife reacted. We live in a major American city, so we’ve experienced crime before, but it never occurred to us that he was trying to pick her pocket. Felt almost quaint, like a Dickens novel.
As we say in the USA:
“The police don’t protect us, we protect us”
There are 7 police officers in my town of 13k. We say “Sometimes there’s justice and sometimes there’s just us”
I mean sure, it do be like that but also my old roommate, who never locked his car and kept weed and his work tools in it overnight, every night, walked around our neighborhood with a pistol “looking” for the guys who stole the aforementioned tools and weed.
It happened 3 times…there’s something wrong with alot of us
That’s kinda cool seeing how apparently you guys do put your money where your mouth is 😄 I wish we talked about that kinda stuff more and not just about the bad. I feel like remembering that not every aspect of being American sucks might give people a better reason to resist too.
Omg, this turned out to be a thread with plenty explanations to USians that societies have laws, police, judges…
You can blame the orange guy all you want, but your culture is completely derailed. Murder (under whatever “reasons”) can’t be a national sport.
Weapon manufacturers really did a good job in the land of the free…
People!! Ugh. Downvoting me is letting your internalized opression taking over your moral!
My most American belief is that society fell apart when we got rid of dueling. Assholes need the threat of violent retribution to contain their assholery, and without that, they just shit everywhere.
Of course, that belief falls apart the minute that you realize that assholes can be good at dueling, too…
It also falls apart when dueling did not generally cross classes. If you were a rich guy your “defense of your honor” was either petty or eliminating competition, sometimes both. No poor person was going to take out a “rich asshole” by any other means than being charged with murder. The only violent retribution available to the masses is revolt accompanied by a guillotine.
Very true.
I mean obviously the gun laws are insane but the act of collectively beating the shit out of pickpockets has my respect.
What about a pickpocket that stole a stupid iPhone from a rich teen who would get a new one the very next day? And, in some less frequent cases, the pickpocket may have had actual needs like buying medicine…
That’s the reason we have a judicial system. Not even police are supposed to do harm, only prevent harm and bring into justice system.
I know the system has many flaws. That’s beyond the point. Those who prefer to go vigilante are calling for making it worse. Specially if we take into account the effects of inequality on a hands-on self-service judicial approach…
Watching 60 days in is an absolutely insane thing to watch as a non american. People living like cockroaches in moldy shit stained rooms. People just sleep on the floor because they are over capacity, violence, food that looks just downright like a hazard to eat. And people in there are like: yeah, i’ve been here 10 times. I can’t get a job so i do crime and then i land here again. Or guys like: i grew some weed, so obviously i’m in this slave hole for 10 years.
What reaction were the French pickpockets expecting? Ope, lemme get that for ya?
I think it’s harder to die from poor in France.
Why is pickpocketing and related just like, not a thing in the US?
I call bullshit. This is the country where everybody says, don’t confront or they’ll shoot/stab you. I bet many other countries have more vigilantism. This is the country, where everybody has guns “to rise against tyranny” and lets a tyranny roam free. This is the country where school shootings are almost a daily event. Majority of these people won’t even confront people that litter.
We don’t have pickpocketing in America, we have robbery.
I had two incidents in my life where someone attempted to rob me. Like specifically requested I give them something. Both times ended with nothing, because they backed off when they realized I don’t have anything worth it.
Why is pickpocketing and related just like, not a thing in the US?
I call bullshit. This is the country where everybody says, don’t confront or they’ll shoot/stab you.
Well, you might have your answer right there. Pickpockets risk getting shot or stabbed, so the risk/reward maths out poorly for them
Three American cities are in the top ten worldwide in fear of getting pickpocketed.
Source: https://matadornetwork.com/read/worst-us-cities-for-pickpockets/
Pickpocketing is happening in every major US city with numbers rising from year to year:
So US citizens thinking they’re superior when they arent.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/05/pickpocket-smartphones/585997/
https://havengear.com/blog/pickpocketing/
But in the end, I believe it’s the car centered cities that keep numbers relatively low. No puclic transport and less people at one place= less pickpockets.
less people at one place= less pickpockets.
Checks out. Las Vegas, Orlando, and NYC are all huge tourist destinations. That’s where you’ll find the most pickpockets.
Pickpocketing is happening in every major US city with numbers rising from year to year: So US citizens thinking they’re superior when they arent.
Thank you for your screenshot of a study about “concern over pickpocketing”. Europe still proceeds to take more of the top 10 spots.
alright, so it’s one in east asia, one in turkey, five in europe, and three in the usa. the europe/usa ratio roughly matches the population ratio. the point stands that it’s still very comparable by population (which a top ten cities list is not suited to describing)
That 0.0 stat is really helping your argument
Three American cities are in the top ten worldwide in fear of getting pickpocketed.
this is an opinion poll of tourists, not a statistic on crime data.
There’s ways to mug and rob tourists in cars. You flag them down like you’re asking for help (I was taught to not stop as a teenager because of how common this was), or you cause a minor fender bender in a beater although that’s more commonly an insurance scam method. Growing up, rental cars in Florida had special “rental” plates, until the government changed the law to make rental cars have the same plates because criminals had been using them to target tourists (cops did too, and they weren’t that thrilled by the change).
TLDR: Orlando is one of the worst car dependent hell holes and it still made the list because Florida Man can be clever when it comes to stealing from tourists.
See, they think that pickpocketing isn’t an issue in the US because they have far more pressing issues.
Over here we talk about pickpocketing, because it’s pretty much the worst crime anyone ever encounters in their real life. You probably wouldn’t care much about that if there’s multiple school shootings a day and people can just stage insurrections and nobody cares.
Ask the women about that take
Crime perception is derived mostly via news reports. Most people are affected by crime maybe 1-2 times in their lives (of course, this number differs greatly with some people being affected by crime all the time, but the median is very low).
That means, your perception what kinds of crimes are how prevalent is mostly shaped by media.
Media has a very limited bandwidth, so of course only the most sensationalist kinds of crimes are reported on. If there’s a school shooting almost every day with 31000 victims in total per year, the likelihood of something as petty as pickpocketing making the news is very low.
I must not have made that comment clear. That is what americans often have told me when talking about vigilantism. “Don’t resist because they might be armed.”
Thank you for clarifying my foreign friend! “Don’t resist because they might be armed” cuts both criminal and civilian.
In America, having a gun is part of the cat and mouse! I am one of two in my x100+extended family to ever get mugged, and implying a gun by asking “is the $13 in my wallet worth the lead” made me the only mugging 'winner".
Yeah, in the instance crime happens, they might have a gun, but lucid criminals understand you might have one as well.
And the mentally unstable is taken really good care of over there I hear.
I have never even met anyone who has gotten mugged or pickpocketed. Not family, not friends, not even my students. Have some been assaulted in some way, yes.
Here is a discussion from the other day about Danes leaving their stuff in public, because anything rarely happens. Americans were also shocked that babies are left outside to sleep in the fresh air, in that same thread. https://lemmy.world/post/32576945
Maybe our lived experiences are anecdotal, different. Your stance seems very generalized, though, if you don’t mind me saying so.
The type of shit the average Joe/Jill deals with depends on their location, situation, and reaction cannot be wrapped up so simply. Mass shootings and politics are just more issues you’re lumping together in a way I feel just isn’t so beautifully packaged as you wrapped it up to be.
Our society is fucked. Don’t get me wrong. But I’m smart/dumb enough not to call you on it outright while I still understand that everything you encompassed here is far more nuanced than a simple, regurgitated hot take.
Many of the people that have helped me escape muggings are the same people our society would accuse of mugging me. 100% of the time they were more helpful than law enforcement.
I think that speaks more to the topic at hand than your comment. We only have each other, sometimes just ourselves, and we cannot look to those that are suppose to uphold the law so we take care of ourselves to a passionate degree and learn fast that it’s better to ask forgiveness than it is permission. The court system is a joke, too. So again. Too many topics, ideals, and talking points to wrap up in a neat little package.
If it was as simple as all of that, why not run for office with this as your platform? Do the work. We all know those actually in office aren’t doing it, so prove them wrong. Otherwise, and I’m sorry, but I take what you say just as seriously as the pontificating drunks I served all night.
In 1992, I caught an eight year old pickpocketing my friend. We were 4 18yo males from Texas. So I am holding this kid a couple feet off the ground trying to decide what the hell to do with him. My friends didn’t really know what to do either. He was struggling pretty good, but not enough to get free. His mom came rushing over yelling something unintelligible, so I just threw him at her, and they took off running.
Thanks to tourists getting all the pickpockets attention, french locals are mostly safe. I never had an issue. That’s why I’d like to say to American tourists: come on, just need to chill out. It’s just a wallet and phone. Give it away, you’ll have a great story to share when you get back home.
How enlightened of you. After all, it’s not like Americans really need their documents, money, or phones in a foreign country.
“I just got back from France! The nicest local I met was the guy that picked my pocket and never said anything to me”
Americans just might be too stupid to notice they were pickpocketed and then think no one pickpockets there
My iphone is gone. Well good thing they release the new one soon and i can pay it off with only 50% interest.
Thieves in the US will just pull a gun on you and turn it into a robbery. It’s simply safer for them to come out of the gate with you at an obvious disadvantage.
Can you draw your weapon before they can pull their trigger? Go ahead, punk. Make my day.
Yeah, this seems to be the most plausible answer here, assuming the baseline claim is true.
It tooke me years to understand that in the US apparently instead of burglars just breaking in, stealing stuff and leaving, “home invasions” are a thing, where people are facing armed robbery in their houses, often including rape. It seems that in the US crime often has a much more violent and hateful component to it than in other western countries.
Around 5 years ago, still in reddit I did a comparison between US and EU crime rates. Despite my prejudice against the US most crimes were fairly similar (robberies, burglaries, assault), it was homicides where the US goes batshit insane.
I believe it must be the availability of guns (even on the defending side, making the criminals more aggressive) that makes a homicide happen alongside a robbery where it does not in EU.
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I call it colonial trauma. Our forefathers would rape the help and the worse that would happen is getting berated by the judge.
How do Europeans react to pickpockets?
warn other people of their presence, publicly shame them
Has public shame worked so far?
Evidently not
Sounds like they just shrug it off like wusses. “Ope don’t get to own that anymore “
I caught a pickpocket in Madrid with his hand in my girlfriend’s purse. He was directly behind us on the escalator. We just kind of were like “hey not cool,” then had an awkward escalator ride. We were late for a flight, so didn’t really have time to do much anyway.
I have had stuff stolen in Paris. Mostly, you have no idea it happened until they’re long gone.
You caught a man with his hand in your girlfriend’s purse, and his punishment was a “hey, not cool” and 15 seconds of awkward escalator?
No fucking wonder that happens CONSTANTLY when an awkward 15 second escalator ride is the punishment for getting caught.
What do you suggest they should’ve done instead in that situation? Assault him and get arrested? Report him to the police or airport security and miss the flight while getting the bureaucratic run-around?
Cause a scene. Be obnoxious and in their face. You don’t have to throw a punch to be scary.
Nah, I suggest they should try aggressively shitting their pants, synchronized with their girlfriend.
Surely the sound + smell will attract the authority figure they so need, and the situation will resolve itself quickly. Much more effective than a stern look!
Sounds like your police protect criminals and not the victims if what you’re describing is true.
To be fair ours in the US mostly do this, too.
God what a bunch of pussies.
Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t average American scared to walk to church without a gun of there are 80 year old homeless people on the way?
Stand corrected, as you are quite wrong.
Nah. There’s a subset sure but not really. I don’t carry anything and I feel no fear. I even lived in Detroit and walked around at night. It was fine.
It usually isn’t worth the time to call the police and wait for them while trying to retain the person(s). If the stolen value is under 400 euros they can only get a fine.
So no one calls the police and no one beats the shit out of them? No wonder you have a problem with pickpockets. You want to be robbed as a society.
I have never been robbed. I have only seen it a couple of times in the metro, so it isn’t really a problem here.
I’ve been in a situation like that. Street perfomance, many a people. Some guy bumped behind me. I somehow quickly noticed a lack of phone. I told my dad, soon as I realised. He went up to the guy, the guy was all like “eh, he dropped it” or whatever. Feels like they just be awkward
I think you destroyed him emotionally.
Not too surprised. Living in the US, giving a shit about the safety of owned property is pretty much the only thing you can count on.
Because replacing said property costs money, money they generally don’t have. Being poor in the US is a cruel hell and they don’t seem to plan on fixing it any time soon so violence it is.
Property is more important than lives. Where else would people literally say they’d shoot someone for going on “their” land.
When US Americans get painted this way, it feels like a “Humans- Fuck Yeah” story. Like I’m just so used to us having our downsides highlighted that it feels special to be seen for a positive attribute
It’s a bit like learning that Russian cargo ships don’t get boarded by pirates because they’ll just start fucking shooting.
Say what you want about Russians, but that kind of rules.
Russians are the scariest white people.
Finland slaughtered them something like with a ver lopsided ratio in the winter war. The Finns are pretty white.
Yeah, but Finns are pretty nice (if socially awkward) when you don’t fuck with them. Wouldn’t count on that with Russians.
Russians can be nice too, it’s just that mostly, not unlike the Finnish, they don’t give a fuck about you in general.
TIL Ukrainians aren’t white
/S
Ukrainians aren’t as scary as Russians, they don’t go invading other countries.
Only if you’re their wives after a few bottles.
Russians are pathetic malnourished drunkards, not scary.
I feel like these stories provide second-hand catharsis, but I don’t know if it’s necessarily a positive light.
Yeah seems like committing a violent crime in response to a petty crime to me.
Humans work off of incentives and risk. If there’s essentially no consequences for pickpocketting and the incentive is quite high with expensive phones and cash potential, the balance is way out of proportion. A good chance of getting your shit rocked brings it a bit more in line.
The possibility of getting shot or stabbed is way out of proportion the other way. That’s the problem with America. You can’t even give someone the bird when they nearly crash into you without fear of getting shot.
I don’t agree with characterizing being robbed from as not a big deal, especially when it’s as physically intimate as pickpocketing.
Maybe it’s no big deal to lose a bit of money if you’re rich, but I would be truly fucked to lose my phone or wallet, and more than inconvenienced to lose money or objects which would need to be replaced with money.
But more than that is the sense of violation. What gives someone the right to come into my home or put hands on my body and take my personal things? It’s dehumanizing. It feels disgusting to be treated that way. Of course I’m going to defend myself.
Pickpocketing is non violent. It is theft.
Robbery involves the use or threat of violence. It is a violent crime.
The two should not be conflated in either direction. Also pickpocketing does not happen at peoples homes, but in public spaces. This is different from break-ins which are a more serious crime as they violate the private living spaces of people on top of violating their property rights.
My reponse would be extremely violent if I were to be pick pocketed that’s for sure. I would not even feel bad at their injuries.
And no one would feel bad when the police in a country with reasonable laws takes you to jail for assaulting someone because of petty theft.
What is this Judge Dredd garbage people from the US often seem so proud of? That stand your ground thinking is only accepted in the violent bubble you guys seem to live in and accept as normal. It’s not normal anywhere else. This is why your police can kill unarmed people on video every week with zero consequences, and with no one batting an eye. Even in the most repressive societies, the security forces have the good sense of killing people in secret, not on video every week. This level of violence is not normal, and you as a regular person don’t benefit by internalizing it as your personal life philosophy.
You weren’t raised by wolves. You wouldn’t get it.
Edit* Found and read the article, it never said the Americans beating up the pickpockets got charged with anything. Shit one had fake elctric wallets to shock the shit out of thieves and only got em confiscated. Seems to me more beat downs would be welcome by the French police of pick pockets. Unless they’re on the take.
Pickpocketing is robbery, my guy.
Just because it is done stealthily doesn’t mean i wasn’t robbed of my goods
Pickpocketing is a form of larceny that involves the stealing of money or other valuables from the person or a victim’s pocket without them noticing the theft at the time.
Robbery[a] is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear; that is, it is a larceny or theft accomplished by an assault.[2] Precise definitions of the offence may vary between jurisdictions. Robbery is differentiated from other forms of theft (such as burglary, shoplifting, pickpocketing, or car theft) by its inherently violent nature (a violent crime); whereas many lesser forms of theft are punished as misdemeanors, robbery is always a felony in jurisdictions that distinguish between the two.
Yeah let’s get dragged into semantics.
Does violence only happen in physical form? Because the time I was pickpocketed left me paranoid for years. The violence inflicted upon me didn’t leave me physically hurting, you’re definitely correct there.
It left me emotionally fucked for years.
Yes, but in America it is acceptable to shoot an unarmed teenager running away for stealing a candy bar, so not exactly preaching to the choir here
Hell, there’s at least one story of a black teenager being shot because he rang someone’s doorbell to ask for help.
I interpreted it as a negative, like “Americans are violent,” heh.
Is it?
I sympathize with the complex though.
There’s a significant percentage of Americans that wouldn’t take that as a negative. As in, aren’t just violent, but are proud of being violent and consider it to be a positive quality. Not all of us, but a fair few. Hence you get things like some gun people fantasizing about having someone break in to their house so that they have a justification to shoot someone and feel righteous about it.
We have a hyper sense of justice instilled in us from a young age. It’s like the basis of our country (or so we’re taught).
So like … where is that righteous violence right now? What’s currently happening in the US is way worse than pickpocketing.
I’d say it’s more about retribution. There’s a craving for punishment against perceived wrongs.
I don’t disagree. Basically what we’re told justice is.
There’s nothing perceived about someone snatching my wallet. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I get it, but it has to be obvious how quickly this logic can spiral, though.
If I come around a corner and find you putting the boots to someone begging you to stop, you’re getting smoked by the biggest thing I can find. I don’t know the context. Violence to stop violence is measured.
Being wronged isn’t a carte blanche. As soon as you introduce violence, suddenly violence actually becomes the measured response against YOU.
Live by the sword, die by the sword, somehow still relevant.
So committing a crime yourself, assault (and/or assault with a deadly weapon), in response to the first crime, pickpocketing, is suddenly totes okay then? I don’t get it. Seems like retributive extrajudicial punishment to me. Just because it’s a real thing that happened and not just perceived doesn’t suddenly absolve you of committing violent crime in return. If you hospitalize the pickpocket and give them a lifelong limp, you’ve given them far more severe and retributive punishment than just taking their wallet in return.
I mean, who knew, maybe this is why we have laws and shit.
It’s not a crime. You can use force to reclaim stolen property. Legally, it gets ‘interesting’ when you involve a weapon in your use of force, because some areas allow the threat of deadly force far before it can actually be used and you’re probably going to expose yourself to legal avenues if the police don’t like you when they show up. But simply kicking someone’s ass after they stole from you? Perfectly permissible.
If you want to talk about the morality of it, that’s a different conversation.
Yes it is totes ok. Encouraged even. Fuck a thief.
You realise beating up a pickpocket is itself a stupid game that will get you in jail, right?
If the idea is that I can’t defend my own property then I understand why pickpocketing is so rampant elsewhere.
I don’t want to kill anybody, but I’m not gonna just hand it over with a smile on my face.
Yeah I feel like I am in crazy town. If you don’t want your ass kicked keep your hands out of my pocket. There will be consequences and they will be lopsided.
You don’t have to want to kill anybody, but it’s still a crime to violently assault someone. Further, you can still kill someone without trying, say you punch him once and he goes lights out and his head hits the concrete so hard it kills him. Doesn’t matter that you didn’t want to, you just killed someone.
Now if you used something defensive like pepper spray so you can escape with your wallet? That’s a different story. There’s a wide gap between protecting your property and assaulting someone.
If someone tried stealing my shit and I caught them, their face would be pretty knotted up.
glad people are finally noticing this aspect of 2a. maybe the conversation can eventually start to touch on things like how it works for unions, reproductive rights, preventing cop fuckery, resisting environmental exploration. long story short, how the perpetrators of systemic and corporeal violence almost exclusively only target the vulnerable and unarmed.
I think the biggest factor here is the immediate and tangible aspect of this type of theft.
Wage theft and systemic things are larger and conceptual until it hits, and more often than not because it’s so vague and not “just one person” it doesn’t evoke the same visceral response in a lot of people.
Not sure how we can start reframing to do so but getting on these conversations is a good idea for sure.
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I’d much rather be pickpocketed than shot.
I’d much rather be pickpocketed than shoot.
