I’ve never been pickpocketed here. It really is in my experience such an elsewhere and old timey crime that I’d be shocked to see it here outside of somewhere like times square.

It’s a skilled crime with high risk of physical violence that thrives when people with enough money to rob are walking with enough frequency as to make it worth robbing folks. Car culture probably plays more of a role than risk of being beaten up, but the potential violence of victims may contribute to would be pickpockets just being muggers.

Thievery here is more con artists, threatening crime, and burglary. It’s a smash and grab on your car, a mugging (though that’s also not super common since the cities were cleaned up), or a armed robbery of a store rather than a pickpocket