# Why don't European pickpockets mug people? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 11, 2003, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424 "2003-02-11T20:50:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/21 "2003-02-12T11:32:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zagadka \* > \*\*Erm, IIRC, there was a report recently about England having a worse violent crime ratio (per capita) than any other industrialized nation… too tired to look it up, though… happy googling. \*\* Couldn’t find a directily comparative report that wasn’t biased one way or another, but interpol keep national crime statistics easily downloadable as acrobat docs [here](http://www.interpol.int/Public/Statistics/ICS/downloadList.asp) I did a quick comparison of the GB and USA ones for 1997 and its true - we have more theft and robbery than the US per 100,000 but our murder and rape rates are about 65% lower. In our favour though - our boys in blue are a helluvah lot more successful at solving crimes. A murder case in the US, for example, has a 66% chance of being solved. Here in GB it has a 91% chance. As always statistics don’t reveal the true picture of course and should always be taken with a pinch of salt. They don’t show who is commiting the crimes (illegal immigrants?? disaffected citizens?? supervillains??) nor do they take into account factors such as population density ( In 1999 the UK’s was 244.69 people per km2 - the US’s was 29.77 according to [this site](http://www.photius.com/wfb1999/rankings/population_density_3.html).) At the end of the day this stuff is all relative - take **evilhanz’** article for example - yep on paper i’m more likely to get mugged in London. But if i’m less like to get murdered than i am in New York then i can live with that. I can’t find a breakdown of “crimes againsts tourists” anywhere - i’d hazard that you are way more likely to get mugged if you are a tourist than a local (that probably goes for anywhere in the world thinking about it). Plus its interesting to read further down in the article about Cheshire’s dispicable murder rate - 8 last year! Whilst it won’t help the victims in anyway, its worth remembering that cheshire has a population of approx. 700,000. Anyway, my take onn the OP would be this - muggings happen all the time, but “pickpockets” are the in thing with the media - newspapers who wish to jump on the anti-immigration band-waggon concentrate on pick-pockets because many crimes of that nature are (allegedly) commited by illegal immigrants. ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/22 "2003-02-12T14:08:05Z")
Pickpockets don’t mug people for the same reason thieves in Vancouver break into your car or apartment-- it’s a crime with less chance of confrontation. ---
**Author:** ![brainfizz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/da6949/32.png) [@brainfizz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brainfizz)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/23 "2003-02-12T15:25:15Z")
A gang of pickpockets tried to steal from me earlier this year. It was so well organized it was scary. There was one old man (a “Fagin” type character), two boys about 13-14ish, and two boys 4-7ish. The younger boys walked past me and I had assumed that they had walked on. The older boys then came up to me and pulled at my jacket and t-shirt, asking me where i got them, what are they made of, etc, distracting me. Then I felt a tug on my pocket. I was so glad that I had worn the trousers with button up pockets! The smaller kid hadn’t noticed that they were buttoned and had got my wallet stuck whilst trying to remove it. When I turned around hurriedly to grab the thief, the old man quickly got in my way and stopped me and asked me the way to King’s Cross. It was obvious they’d done hundreds of times before. I pity the children that have to grow up like that. ---
**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/24 "2003-02-12T15:51:27Z")
**garius** _Plus its interesting to read further down in the article about Cheshire’s dispicable murder rate - 8 last year!_ That whole paragraph is very dubious when they don’t tell you the exact figures. Statements like “The murder rate doubled in Loamshire” sound scary, but if we’re only talking single figures, it’s probably evidence of nothing but random scatter around a very low level. In any case, the source **evilhanz** cited is suspect: _The Weekly Standard_ is a right-wing polemical journal - roughly comparable to the _Daily Mail_ - with a Law and Order axe to grind. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/25 "2003-02-12T17:18:26Z")
Yeah - this was the problem i had trying to find unbiased stats. Everyone has got a message to get across, whether its tighter/looser gun control or “Why Britain/USA is a worse place to live.” Ahhhhhh sod it. Lets all go live in Finland. ---
**Author:** ![wooba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@wooba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wooba)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/26 "2003-02-12T17:49:40Z")
Talking about murder stats reminds me of the film “Bowling for Columbine”. It gives the murder statistics for one year (I don’t know which year). They are as follows: Germany - 381 France - 255 Canada - 165 UK - 68 Australia - 65 Japan - 39 USA - 11,127 ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/27 "2003-02-12T18:19:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by garius \* > \*\*Ahhhhhh sod it. Lets all go live in Finland. \*\* As illegal (and allegedly criminal) immigrants? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Exoskeleton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@Exoskeleton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exoskeleton)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/28 "2003-02-12T18:33:19Z")
My theory: As many have pointed out, you need substantial training to be a pickpocket. Where do European pickpockets get this training? My guess is there are no vocational schools. I imagine it is the sort of thing that has been passed on through the ages, as gang members recruit youths and train them as they’ve been trained since their youths and so on back to the days of Queen Victoria or before. It’s tradition. All right. So here in the US, the criminal classes do not have the same tradition, i.e. no ‘pickpocket gangs’ of past have continued to the present day to pass on their skills. One would have assumed that such gangs would have existed due to immigration, but perhaps they died out? Would make an interesing study. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/29 "2003-02-12T20:17:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wooba \* > \*\*Talking about murder stats reminds me of the film “Bowling for Columbine”. It gives the murder statistics for one year (I don’t know which year). > They are as follows: > > Germany - 381 > France - 255 > Canada - 165 > UK - 68 > Australia - 65 > Japan - 39 > USA - 11,127 \*\* \ And how many of these low crime countries have 282 million people? In another thread (GD) we worked out that while the discrepancy between US and Canada seems **huge** , if you assumed an equal population between the two counties there are less than 6 times as many murders in the US than Canada, not 67 times a many as a glance would indicate. Or look at it this way: The number of people murdered in Boston during 2001 was 39. There are 95 times as many people in Boston than the town I live in, so even one murders would have made the murder rate for the year here several times higher than in Boston since the odds of being murdered in this town would be 1 in 6,000 vs one in 14,750. The murder rate in the US **is** terrible but not as terrible as the numbers that aren’t adjusted would make it seem. \ ---
**Author:** ![Coilean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f6c823/32.png) [@Coilean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coilean)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/30 "2003-02-12T20:42:15Z")
Just to pay devils abacus, I don’t think there’s a hell of a lot of skill involved with some types of pick-pocketing\*. If the pocket-picker sticks to popular (read busy) touristy areas, I’d think the primary skill would be to find an inattentive passer-by. You know, the type of traveller that fiddles with his camera, looks at a map, talks to his wife, oogles the store windows, and gawks at the street vendors all at the same time. When someone’s properly distracted, I can’t imagine it would take much to unzip a back pack, or make a quick pass at their purse. Additionally, as a bit of anecdotal evidence, I’ve known a few people to have a bag or purse lifted when they were sitting at a bar or table and were looking the other way. No need to get all violent, just swipe the bag and run. In these situations, as a thief, why the hell would you want to use a weapon or otherwise cause a scene? After all, it’s the money you’re after, not a fight. It seems to make more sense to keep quiet, swipe a wallet, wait an hour and repeat than it does create a commotion and risk injury–to both parties, what happen if the guy you decide to mug turns out to be tougher than you? Additionally, I think the chances of police involvement increase exponentially when violent crime is an issue. Again, why take the risk? ---
**Author:** ![Tomcat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Tomcat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tomcat)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/31 "2003-02-12T21:03:30Z")
Actually, pickpocketing isn’t all that hard. It’s all about overloading the senses. Well, actually, finding the right target and overloading the senses. You and three friends walk down the street in Tourist-town Europe…you see a 65 yr. old with a bulging pocket…Oh look! He’s going to wait at the tram stop, he must want to get on the tram…let’s go wait next to him…(tram comes)…as the guy cranes his neck to make absolutely sure he is getting on the correct tram and politely letting the young miss go in front of him, your friends crowd into him on the way on…you crowd on too, right up next to him and close…all the stumbling, pushing, etc. overloads this guy’s senses…you calmly pull out his wallet. He doesn’t even feel it. Try this: take your right hand and start hitting your right thigh continuously, then hit your left thigh with your left hand quickly…I bet you felt it, but not a lot. Your brain can only handle so many input stimuli before it gets confused and stops accepting new inputs. I witness pickpockets regularly here in Prague. They go from one tram to the next to the next to the next to the next to the next to the metro to the next metro to the next metro, etc…I’ve stopped quite a few pickpockets, and they weren’t even fazed…just walked away from me and got onto another tram and tried again. They don’t need to mug, they get plenty of wallets and cameras just by doing the easy thing. And don’t get so misty eyed about the non-violence of Europeans…These are thieves folks! They don’t give a flying f\*\*k about leadin a moral non-violent life. If mugging people would earn them more money, they would be mugging all the time. ?Every year there is a constant supply of drunk or elderly tourists flowing through here that are completely clueless and leave their cameras hanging out of their jacket pockets. -Tcat ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/32 "2003-02-12T21:48:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sailor \* > \*\*European societies in the last few decades have been much less violent than the US. Th reasons are probably to be found in a combination of many factors of which culture would be one. American culture has been much more violent. Europeans tend to have much stronger family and social ties than Americans and this prevents crime more than all the prisons and cops you could throw at criminals. Unfortunately, things are changing in Europe and violent crime has been increasing sharply. Probably part of the reason is that Societies are changing and the family and social ties are not as strong as they used to be. As has been said, London has gotten much worse than it was and Spain has also suffered a huge increase in violent crime. There are many causes but illegal immigrants are major contributors. \*\* And I was going to blame video games. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2003, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/33 "2003-02-12T22:38:04Z")
**Tomcat** _Actually, pickpocketing isn’t all that hard._ So I’ve read. Dashiell Hammett, in his 1923 _From the Memoirs of a Private Detective_, wrote from his experience with the Pinkerton agency: “Pocket-picking is the easiest to master of all the criminal trades. Anyone who is not crippled can become an adept in a day”. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/34 "2003-02-13T00:05:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elfkin477 \* > \ > And how many of these low crime countries have 282 million people? > \ > The murder rate in the US **is** terrible but not as terrible as the numbers that aren’t adjusted would make it seem. > \ Very true. The adjusted numbers are something like (murders per million) Germany - 4.6 France - 4.4 Canada - 5.2 UK - 1.1 Australia - 3.3 Japan - 0.3 USA - 39.6 We should all find out what on earth it is that Japan’s doing… ---
**Author:** ![Lorenzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4da419/32.png) [@Lorenzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorenzo)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/35 "2003-02-13T01:11:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Aspidistra \* > \*\*Very true. The adjusted numbers are something like > > (murders per million) > > Germany - 4.6 > France - 4.4 > Canada - 5.2 > UK - 1.1 > Australia - 3.3 > Japan - 0.3 > USA - 39.6 > > We should all find out what on earth it is that Japan’s doing… \*\* But we probably won’t be able to replicate it. Japan is: a relatively small island nation, has a historical fear of invasion, is natural resource poor, and has a homogeneous population-- rather the anti-US. All of these factors favor a sense of collectivism, a supression of individual needs over the greater good of the group and an us vs. them mentality, all of which may lead to a reduced murder rate. ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/36 "2003-02-13T01:12:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wooba \* > \*\*Talking about murder stats reminds me of the film “Bowling for Columbine”. It gives the murder statistics for one year (I don’t know which year). > They are as follows: > > Germany - 381 > France - 255 > Canada - 165 > UK - 68 > Australia - 65 > Japan - 39 > USA - 11,127 \*\* That really doesn’t sound right. Baltimore usually has over 300 murders per year. It wouldn’t make sense for them to account for almost 1/4 of the murders in the entire country. ---
**Author:** ![Coilean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f6c823/32.png) [@Coilean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coilean)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/37 "2003-02-13T01:29:49Z")
**Super Gnat** Methinks your math is a bit off. ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/38 "2003-02-13T01:31:29Z")
_blush_ I’ll just go over there now. ---
**Author:** ![wooba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@wooba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wooba)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/39 "2003-02-13T07:16:30Z")
I’m sorry, I didn’t claify on my previous postings. Those murder statistics were for gun oriented murders. ---
**Author:** ![Ficer67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c57346/32.png) [@Ficer67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ficer67)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2003, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424/40 "2003-02-13T08:12:41Z")
Somebody asked what Japan was doing about crime in general. Japanese incarceration is not like American incarceration. Criminals convicted and imprisoned in Japanese prisons are forced to kneel in their cell all day, and do nothing else. American convicts are lauded with cable tv, training programs, and other amenities(sp) that the japs just will not consider for their criminals. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-european-pickpockets-mug-people/154424.md?page=3)