Pickpocketing

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This article is about the crime. For the Robert Bresson film, see Pickpocket (film).

Picking pockets is a crime, a form of larceny which involves the stealing of money and valuables from the person of a victim without their noticing the theft at the time. It requires considerable dexterity and a knack for misdirection. Someone who picks pockets is known as a pickpocket.

Pickpockets and other thieves, especially those working in teams, sometimes apply distraction, such as asking a question, bumping into the victim, or deliberately dirtying the victim's clothing and then "helping" him/her to clean it.

The crime used to be punishable by death – even though public hangings were considered prime targets for pickpockets. William Shakespeare referenced this in his play The Winter's Tale, where the rogue and pickpocket Autolycus observes,

...

every lane's end, every shop, church, session,

hanging, yields a careful man work.

Famous fictional pickpockets include The Artful Dodger and Fagin, characters from the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. Famous true-life pickpockets include the Irish-American prostitute Chicago May, who was profiled in the book "Hell Hath No Fury: Famous Women in Crime" (Betty Nygaard King, Borealis Press, 2001).

Pickpocket skills are also used by magicians, either to take an item from a spectator or to return it without their knowledge.