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[–] 27 points 1 year ago (21 children)

Why is pickpocketing and related just like, not a thing in the US?

I call bullshit. This is the country where everybody says, don't confront or they'll shoot/stab you.

Well, you might have your answer right there. Pickpockets risk getting shot or stabbed, so the risk/reward maths out poorly for them

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (17 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    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.

    Thank you for your screenshot of a study about "concern over pickpocketing". Europe still proceeds to take more of the top 10 spots.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    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)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    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.

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  • 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.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    less people at one place= less pickpockets.

    Checks out. Las Vegas, Orlando, and NYC are all huge tourist destinations. That's where you'll find the most pickpockets.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ask the women about that take

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    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."

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    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

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