this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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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.
Ah ha ! As a kid I was stunned by how violente the death of Bruce Wayne parents were. All this for jewelery? I get it now. That's just cultural chock. Less pickpocketing more robbery.
We do have organized pickpockets in the US, just not as many and they are mostly concentrated in specific parts of the country where there are dense tourist areas. New Orleans and Las Vegas for example are both pretty well known for having pickpockets.
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
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.
this is an opinion poll of tourists, not a statistic on crime data.
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)
USA has more land mass by leagues, so... Europe is still kicking ass based on area and probably on population, too. Three big US cities almost certainly doesnpt equal up to many Euro cities...
Your attempts to twist this narrative are hilarious, but it's also so, so sad...
Ok but the US points in the pickpocket column are pretty low compared to Europe's. Other forms of stealing are plenty common in America, it's just that we're a lot more likely to get shown a gun and asked to empty our pockets ourselves than have the thief covertly do it for us.
That 0.0 stat is really helping your argument
In the unlisted cities, pickpockets will leave cash, weed, and Kinder Surprises in your pockets.
Checks out. Las Vegas, Orlando, and NYC are all huge tourist destinations. That's where you'll find the most pickpockets.
Every last thing on that list is a major tourist destination.
Maybe we're looking at this wrong. Maybe it's not that the US is less likely to be pickpocketed, just for size you're less likely to be in a pickpocketable area.
The other part of the comment was that Americans drive everywhere, thus there are less opportunities to pickpocket. Tourists walk around a lot.
Also Vegas doesnt surprise me in the least. It's utterly unwalkable except in the hospitality areas where a lot of people are drunk and headed to or from casinos.
If I were to choose one place in the world to be a pickpocket, Vegas would be very high on the list. It's a perfect combination.
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.
Density and cultural norms in general are definitely a factor.
If I was out and about in my normal area where I live in the US and someone got close enough to pick my pocket I'd be on high alert because they are way inside the normal personal space bubble here.
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.