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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3765 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 27, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Why don’t US cities have pickpockets? I’ve always heard (in the US) that if you’re traveling to a major city in Europe to be on the lookout for pickpockets, and I’ve heard stories from a few people who have had wallets/passports/phones stolen there. But despite the US having more crime in general I’ve never heard of this happening in any US city. You hear that there are certain parts of US cities to avoid, and I’ve heard stories of muggings or bikes being stolen, but nothing about pickpockets. Does anyone have a theory about why this is?

Pickpocketing is done almost exclusively by Roma people and there are barely any Roma in the US.

there are lots of Roma in the US, they just integrated rather than forming societal enclaves

There’s plenty of Roma societal enclaves in the USA, they just run scams of varying description(I’ve run into ones doing fraudulent auto work in the past, and I’ll eat a hat if they weren’t up to their eyeballs in some kind of tax fraud scheme. I’ve also heard of them being fences.) rather than pickpocketing.

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