# Pissed-off tourists beating up pickpockets in Europe **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 25, 2026, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546 "2026-04-25T13:47:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/1 "2026-04-25T13:47:02Z")
So the latest weird genre of YouTube videos that The Algorithm thinks I’m interested in involves tourists getting fed up with pickpockets in Rome or Paris or wherever and putting down some “extra-judicial” punishment on them (viz, knocking them the fuck out). Seriously, one dude didn’t cotton to some wannabe thug gangsta pickpocket reaching for his knife after being caught, and he straight cold-clocked him with a haymaker, then followed it up by a Chuck Norris kick to the head, leaving him semi-conscious and on the ground, likely rethinking his choices for the day.\* In the US, beating someone up out in public in broad daylight is kind of … frowned upon, even in a situation like this. Still, I’m not aware of any specific cases of any Americans in the US being criminally prosecuted for opening up a can of Whoopass on a pickpocket, and I image they are few. How do the police in Europe handle these things? Is beating someone up for pickpocketing you (or trying to pickpocket you) a ticket to the same jail as the miscreant? Do they tend to look the other way? Is “he needed a beating” going to get a tourist off the hook when he pleads his case? \*ETA: Yes, I’m sure not a small number of such videos are staged. But I’m also aware that pickpocketing is a yuge problem in places like Paris and Rome. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/2 "2026-04-25T14:56:16Z")
The people who successfully picked one of our pockets in Paris (actually a zipped bag, opened and emptied), consisted of a gaggle of maybe 8 or 10 apparently teenage girls. This is, I guess, a well-known tactic – they swooped in on us in the big sort of plaza between the Tuileries and the Louvre, twittered around us apparently begging us to sign something, and then disappeared like magic when they had made their target. We, of course, were not aware what they were doing until later, and in any case would have been unlikely to use physical violence against them, plus I’ll bet they had one or two male minders nearby. Rather we should have taken Rick Steves’ advice and kept all valuables safely in a money belt (except for a token amount in a disposable wallet, to satisfy more direct robbers). ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/3 "2026-04-25T15:04:35Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > apparently teenage girls I read somewhere once that the gangs that operate these pickpocketing operations recruit (or more likely force) children and teens to do their bidding because the law is less harsh on children. Or something. I don’t know if this is still the case. > [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > should have taken Rick Steves’ advice My favorite bit of Rick Steves’ advice is to smoke weed. OK so I don’t know that he’s ever advised tourists (or anyone else) to do it, but he’s a known lover of the Kind Bud. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/4 "2026-04-25T15:34:49Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > I read somewhere _Oliver Twist_? ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/5 "2026-04-25T15:37:19Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > _Oliver Twist_? Heh. No, more like _Newsweek_ or something. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/6 "2026-04-25T15:45:44Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > How do the police in Europe handle these things? Is beating someone up for pickpocketing you (or trying to pickpocket you) a ticket to the same jail as the miscreant? Do they tend to look the other way? Is “he needed a beating” going to get a tourist off the hook when he pleads his case? In Germany, the cops will likely put a beating on you for putting a beating on someone else. I’ve seen people roughed up for riding a bike in a no-bicycle area or for not having an u-bahn ticket. In France, however, it’s as likely to get a shrug as anything else. I had an acquaintance at the embassy in Paris who got into an altercation at the Arc de Triomphe in which he ended up banging the guy’s head against his car roof after the guy slapped him in a traffic dispute. The cop just watched them and shrugged. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/7 "2026-04-25T15:53:59Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > In Germany, the cops will likely put a beating on you for putting a beating on someone else. Do you have a cite for that? Germany is a very civilized country and that sort of thing should certainly be illegal. What I willl say, though, is that the general criminality in many European countries tends to differ from the violent crime prevalent in the US and is more along the lines of pickpocketing, which is amazingly prevalent in the urban centers of France, Italy, Spain, and no doubt in the urban centers of many other European countries – Paris, Rome, and Madrid in particular. Crowded touristy places like markets, subways, and airports are especially vulnerable. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/8 "2026-04-25T15:55:01Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Do you have a cite for that? Germany is a very civilized country and that sort of thing should certainly be illegal. Just my own experience from living there for four years. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/9 "2026-04-25T16:00:53Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Just my own experience from living there for four years. Maybe so – **[according to Human Rights Watch](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/germany)**: > During 2024, German democratic political parties failed to counter mainstream far-right, racist, and anti-migrant narratives. Meanwhile, Germany’s far-right political party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), gained significant political power in two Eastern German state elections. Attacks against marginalized groups, such as LGBT people, and racist, right-wing, and antisemitic violence appeared to be on the rise. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/10 "2026-04-25T16:42:34Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > > German democratic political parties failed to counter mainstream far-right, racist, and anti-migrant narratives. I don’t now where HRW has learned to expose and argue their ideas in writing, but if they truly believe that “far-right, racist, and anti-migrant narratives” have become mainstream, we have already lost. > [@HeyHomie](#): > > I read somewhere once that the gangs that operate these pickpocketing operations recruit (or more likely force) children and teens to do their bidding because the law is less harsh on children. Of course it is. Countries treating children like adults are the ones in the wrong. Of course criminal organizations take advantage of that and try to recruit children. But that is no reason to sentence children like adults, much less to apply three strikes you’re out for life sentencing doctrines. I have seen a policeman in Barcelona slap a child that was clearly engaging in pickpocketing. British tourists were appalled. _How can he? Oh, those Spaniards, brutish and uncivilized they are._ Well, the fact is that children get taken to the police station, their identity is noted, and they are let go. You cannot keep a child in prison with adults, and there are no children prisons. Policemen grew frustrated about arresting the same children several times a week, and one did vent his frustration like that. I cannot really blame him, although it was dumb, counterproductive and gave a bad image to all onlookers. Fortunately for him nobody seems to have recorded the incident, phones were not so prevalent then (and it was a phone the kid wanted to steal). The fact that the child was clearly Romanian did not help. Spanish police and the media associate Romanian with Gipsy and Gipsy with organized crime. Which is not even wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/11 "2026-04-25T16:51:35Z")
Contextual background only: Policing habits vary widely across Europe, and that it has been observed by the Economist magazine that democracies have an uneven record in laying down police procedure. Obligatory joke: Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian and it’s all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lover’s Swiss, the police German and it’s all organized by the Italians. Also, Noah Smith has pointed out that there are typically _more_ cops in Europe per capita than there are in the US. More cops, fewer prisoners. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/12 "2026-04-25T16:56:05Z")
The joke is a bit dated by now: today I would say that German policemen are not so bad anymore. In hell it is the bureaucrats that are German. Or Russian. And I am glad the Spanish don’t feature in that joke. > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > More cops, fewer prisoners. And no death penalty. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/13 "2026-04-25T17:03:09Z")
My sister was stationed in Italy in the late 90s early 2000s. When we spoke after she had been there a few months, she expressed her surprise at how pissed off Italians would get when American sailors beat the snot out of someone for trying to pick their pocket. Nearby Italians would start shouting at the American instead of the pickpocket. Typically there was no law enforcement involved though. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/14 "2026-04-25T17:06:29Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > In the US, beating someone up out in public in broad daylight is kind of … frowned upon I think you’ll find it’s just as frowned upon in Europe, if not more so. I’m assuming the legal protection is that they wait until they return to the US before posting these videos. I imagine the main legal liability would be the possibility of some kind of civil suit in the US, if these videos get sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/15 "2026-04-25T17:14:21Z")
In the UK, you can use “reasonable” force to prevent a thief from robbing you, but beating them up after the event would likely result in an appearance in front of a magistrate. If you were caught. UK law uses the word ‘_reasonable_’ quite a lot. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/16 "2026-04-25T17:20:00Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > an appearance in front of a magistrate > [@HeyHomie](#): > > straight cold-clocked him with a haymaker, then followed it up by a Chuck Norris kick to the head That would be pretty cut and dried ABH (actual bodily harm) with a sentence of month to years in prison. The filming and posting on social media might increase the sentence (and possibly be a crime in itself) ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/17 "2026-04-25T22:09:49Z")
The worst I seen on my YouTube a bunch of crowding and pushing in train stations and some content creator hollering Pick pocket. Causing chaos. 🤔 makes one wonder who the problem is. I haven’t seen beat down videos. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/18 "2026-04-25T22:15:27Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > In the US, beating someone up out in public in broad daylight is kind of … frowned upon, even in a situation like this. Where in the US is self-defense from robbery frowned upon? ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/19 "2026-04-25T22:47:07Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > Where in the US is self-defense from robbery frowned upon? I think there’s a line between self-defense and extra-judicial punishment. Like, if you catch a pickpocket actively trying to rob you and you knock him upside the head, self-defense. If he’s already pickpocked you, and you catch up to him and then put the beat down on him, well… you’ll probably be in cuffs while the cops sort things out, at the very least. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2026, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546/20 "2026-04-25T23:05:39Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > Where in the US is self-defense from robbery frowned upon? Places where “[duty to retreat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_retreat)” is a thing? Also, pick-pocketing isn’t [robbery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbery). > Robbery is differentiated from other forms of [theft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft) (such as [burglary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burglary), [shoplifting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoplifting), [pickpocketing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickpocketing), or [car theft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_theft)) by its inherently violent nature (a [violent crime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_crime)); whereas many lesser forms of theft are punished as [misdemeanors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misdemeanors), robbery is always a [felony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony) in jurisdictions that distinguish between the two. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pissed-off-tourists-beating-up-pickpockets-in-europe/1029546.md?page=2)