• Wilco@lemmy.zip
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    15 days ago

    No, it is because pickpocketing can be argued as being an assault in the US. If you catch someone pickpocketing you it is legal to defend yourself and your property.

      • Wilco@lemmy.zip
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        15 days ago

        Definitely. My city has a huge yearly street festival and the police stand on the roofs of buildings to watch for pickpockets. Each year we will see a few getting caught by the “victims”, most of the time there will be four or five people beating on the thief by the time the police get there. All the police do is haul the pickpocket away. So it seems like a legal “gray area” where I am from.

    • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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      15 days ago

      …and that’s why they start with maximum violence out of the bat. If for you as a criminal the outcome is the same, why risk it and start with random pickpocket, when you will be tried as if you assaulted a person, start with an assault, safer for you, same risk.

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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        15 days ago

        I am flabbergasted you think that a petty assault charge for pickpocketing is even in the same building as pre meditated murder with a lethal weapon.

        The us is bad sure, but not the only nation with a similar system (I know here someone will take a swing at a pickpocketer) and yet the murder rate is not higher then average in the world.

        • Wilco@lemmy.zip
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          15 days ago

          I was thinking the same thing. Try and pickpocket someone and get caught/punched and the thief might get a few months in jail. Going straight to assault/murder over a wallet is straight up crackhead mentality.

          • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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            14 days ago

            That’s deep meth territory. Most around here doing crime to feed a habit most certainly stick to methods of theft that don’t come with over 10 year sentences. Its been an increasing issue here the last decade but assaults have actually gone down in the same time period. Drugs smuggled up from the nation south of us has created more addicts but that does not make them murderers.

        • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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          15 days ago

          Are you kidding me? US with has the worst rate of intentional homicide per capita in all the developed world by far. It has alsmost the same level as Russia, country actively waging a war with a neighbor, it’s on par with Yemen for fucks sake. And that’s just intentional, it doesn’t even takes into account self-defense killing, negligent homicide, or assault with no intention to murder.