I grew up in New York City and now live in Boston and I’ve never encountered a pickpocket. I’ve been mugged three times and had a mentally unbalanced homeless guy punch me in the face unprovoked, but I’ve never been pickpocketed.
Do you hang around in large crowded tourist spots a lot? Crowded subways? Because that’s where they are, not walking down main St. Go to times square during any major event and they are out there, but as others commented, not at the levels you’ll see in European countries. Why, who knows? Tactics change over the years, they’ve probably found more profitable avenues of theft in the USA, God knows it is rampant.
Yeah, I rode the Subway and T for years during rush hour, I used to work in Times Square, and I’ve of course been to tourist events in that time. In nearly 40 years of city living, I don’t know anyone who’s had their pocket picked, either in busy areas or, “Main st.”
I grew up in New York City and now live in Boston and I’ve never encountered a pickpocket. I’ve been mugged three times and had a mentally unbalanced homeless guy punch me in the face unprovoked, but I’ve never been pickpocketed.
Do you hang around in large crowded tourist spots a lot? Crowded subways? Because that’s where they are, not walking down main St. Go to times square during any major event and they are out there, but as others commented, not at the levels you’ll see in European countries. Why, who knows? Tactics change over the years, they’ve probably found more profitable avenues of theft in the USA, God knows it is rampant.
Yeah, I rode the Subway and T for years during rush hour, I used to work in Times Square, and I’ve of course been to tourist events in that time. In nearly 40 years of city living, I don’t know anyone who’s had their pocket picked, either in busy areas or, “Main st.”
Well if you’ve never experienced it then I guess it just never happens?!
I think if I don’t know anyone it’s happened to in decades of living in large cities means its probably not very common.
Agreed. Grew up in dense East Coast cities in the 80s and 90s, pickpocketing was not a thing that happened.