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Notes -
The last I heard about this was years ago and don't currently have any cites, but apparently the US broke up pickpocketing rings in their cities while the Europeans didn't. This was part policy, part sentence length, and partly because European pickpocketing rings are ensconced in difficult to police ethnic communities the way US drug gangs are.
There's a lot of institutional knowledge and organization involved in running pickpocketing scams rather than the customary beating-people-over-the-head-with-a-tire-iron, and putting away the leaders/teachers broke the cycle.
This is now considered "discredited" as it suggests that policing rather than police abolition can reduce crime, but even Slate acknowledged it at one point (along with "lazy millennials don't want to learn an honest trade any more" lol)
Edit: have to give the slate article credit: "professionals from countries like Bulgaria and Romania, each with storied traditions of pickpocketing" is a wonderfully polite way to say "fucking gyppos took my wallet!"
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