Editing Pickpocketing (section)

== Pickpocketing in the 17th and 18th centuries ==
[[File:Hieronymus Bosch 051.jpg|thumb|[[Hieronymus Bosch]]: ''[[The Conjurer (painting)|The Conjurer]]'', 1475–1480. A pickpocket, in cahoots with the conjurer, is shown at far left.]]

The 17th and 18th centuries saw a significant number of men and women pickpockets, operating in public and/or private places and stealing different types of items. Some of those pickpockets were caught and prosecuted for their theft, however, in most cases, they managed to avoid punishment (whether they were skilful enough not to get caught or they were acquitted in court). 

In the 17th century, pickpockets were sometimes referred to as "cut-purses", as can be seen in some 17th century ballads.<ref>{{Cite web|title = EBBA 30274 |website=ebba.english.ucsb.edu|publisher=UCSB English Broadside Ballad Archive|url = http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/30274/image|access-date = 2015-11-25}}</ref> At that time, pockets were not yet sewn to clothes, as they are today. This means that the pockets were a small purse that people wore close to their body. This was especially true for women, since men's pockets were sewn "into the linings of their coats".<ref>{{Cite web|title = A history of pockets|url = http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/history-of-pockets/|website = vam.ac.uk|publisher=Victoria and Albert Museum|access-date = 2015-11-25}}</ref> Women's pockets were worn beneath a piece of clothing, and not "as opposed to pouches or bags hanging outside their clothes".<ref name=":4">{{Cite magazine|last=Burnston|first=Sharon Ann |title = What's in a Pocket? |url = http://www.historicnewengland.org/publications/historic-new-england-magazine/spring-2001/NEWWSpringPage04.htm|magazine=Historic New England|date=Spring 2001| access-date = 2015-11-25|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151028200531/http://www.historicnewengland.org/publications/historic-new-england-magazine/spring-2001/NEWWSpringPage04.htm|archive-date = 2015-10-28|url-status = dead}}</ref> These external pockets were still in fashion until the mid-19th century.<ref name=":4" />

=== Gender ===
Pickpocketing in the 18th century was committed by both men and women (looking at prosecuted cases of pickpocketing, it appears that there were more female defendants than male.)<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title = Gender, Crime and Judicial Discretion 1780–1830|last = Palk|first = Deirdre|publisher = The Boydell Press|year = 2006|isbn = 0-86193-282-X|location = Great Britain|pages = 67–88|chapter = Pickpocketing}}</ref> Along with [[shoplifting]], pickpocketing was the only type of crime committed by more women than men.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Historical Background - Gender in the Proceedings|url = https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/about/gender|website = Old Bailey Online |access-date = 2015-11-05}}</ref> It seems that in the 18th century, most pickpockets stole out of economic needs: they were often poor and did not have any economic support,<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|title = Print and the Female Voice: Representation of Women's Crime in London, 1690–1735|last = Shoemaker|first = Robert|date = April 2010|journal = Gender & History|doi = 10.1111/j.1468-0424.2009.01579.x |pages =75–91|volume = 22|issue=1| s2cid=143952335 }}</ref> and unemployment was "the single most important cause of poverty",<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title = Tales from the Hanging Court|last1 = Hitchcock |first1 = Tim |last2=Shoemaker|first2= Robert|publisher = Bloomsbury Academic|year = 2010|isbn = 978-0-340-91375-8}}</ref> leading the most needy ones to pick pockets.

In most cases, pickpockets operated depending on the opportunities they got: if they saw someone wearing a silver watch or with a [[handkerchief]] bulging out of their pocket, the pickpockets took the item. This means that the theft was, in such cases, not premeditated. However, some pickpockets did work as a gang, in which cases they planned thefts, even though they could not be sure of what they would get ([[Daniel Defoe|Defoe]]'s ''[[Moll Flanders]]''<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title = Moll Flanders|last = Defoe|first = Daniel|publisher = Penguins Classic|year = 1722|isbn = 978-0-14-043313-5|location = England}}</ref> gives several examples of how pickpockets worked as a team or on their own, when the eponymous character becomes a thief out of need).

The prosecutions against pickpockets at the [[Old Bailey]] between 1780 and 1808 show that male pickpockets were somewhat younger than female ones: 72% of men pickpockets convicted at the time were aged from under 20 to 30, while 72% of women convicted of picking pockets were aged between 20 and 40.<ref name=":0" /> One reason that may explain why women pickpockets were older is that most of women pickpockets were prostitutes (this explains why very few women under 20 years old were convicted for picking pockets). At the end of the 18th century, 76% of women defendants were prostitutes, and as a result, the victims of pickpockets were more often men than women.<ref name=":0" />

In most cases, these prostitutes would lay with men (who were frequently drunk), and take advantage of the situation to steal from these clients. Men who were robbed by prostitutes often chose not to prosecute the pickpockets, since they would have had to acknowledge their "immoral behaviour".<ref name=":1" /> The few men who decided to prosecute prostitutes for picking their pockets were often mocked in Court, and very few prostitutes ended up being declared fully guilty.<ref name=":0" />

The men who were prosecuted for picking pockets and who were under 20 years old were often children working in gangs, under the authority of an adult who trained them to steal.<ref name=":1" /> The children involved in these gangs were orphans (either because of having been abandoned or because their parents had died), and the whole relationship they had with the adult ruling the gang and the other children was that of a "surrogate family".<ref name=":1" /> [[Charles Dickens]]' ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' provides a good example of how orphans were recruited and turned into street criminals.

=== Methods of operation and targets ===
[[File:Watch for pickpockets.JPG|thumb|Pickpocket [[warning sign]] in [[Tallinn]], Estonia]]
Male and female pickpockets tended to operate in different locations: 80% of men operated in public areas while 78% of women operated in private places.<ref name=":0" /> This can be explained by the fact that most female pickpockets were prostitutes, robbing their victims in their lodging after having lain with them. Male pickpockets, on the other hand, tended to operate in public places because they did not have the opportunity that prostitutes had.

The fact that men and women did not operate in the same places led to them stealing different types of items: men stole mostly handkerchiefs,<ref name=":0" /> because they were one of the easiest items to take from someone without them noticing it. Women tended to steal watches (some pickpockets also stole watches in public places, but it was more difficult) and bags with money in them. When defending themselves in court, prostitutes often argued that the money had been a gift from the victim and managed to be acquitted, as the men prosecuting them were often drunk at the time of the theft and were not taken seriously by the court.<ref name=":2" />

=== Prosecution ===
In the eyes of British law, pickpocketing was considered a [[Capital punishment|capital offence]] from 1565 on:<ref name=":0" /> this meant that it was punishable by hanging.<ref name=":1" /> However, for the crime to be considered as a capital offence, the stolen item had to be worth more than 12 pennies, otherwise it was considered to be petty [[larceny]],<ref name=":0" /> which meant that the thief would not be hanged. The 18th century law also stated that only the thief could be prosecuted—any accomplice or receiver of the stolen item could not be found guilty of the crime: "This meant that, if two people were indicted together, and there was not clear proof as to which one made the final act of taking, neither should be found guilty".<ref name=":0" />{{rp|69}}

Moreover, in order to be able to prosecute someone for pickpocketing, the victim of the theft had to not be aware that they were being robbed. In 1782, a case at the [[Old Bailey]] made it clear that this was supposed to prevent people who had been robbed while they were drunk from prosecuting the defendant (in most of the cases that meant men who had been robbed by prostitutes):<ref name=":0" /> The victims of pickpockets who were drunk at the time of the theft were considered to be partially responsible for being robbed.

Even though pickpockets were supposed to be hanged for their crime, this punishment, in fact, rarely happened: 61% of women accused of picking pockets were acquitted<ref name=":1" /> and those who were not acquitted often managed to escape the capital sentence, as only 6% of defendants accused of pickpocketing between 1780 and 1808 were hanged.<ref name=":0" />

In the cases of prostitutes being accused of having pickpocketed male prosecutors, the jury's verdict was very often more favourable to the woman defendant than to the man prosecuting her.<ref name=":0" /> Men who had been laying with prostitutes were frowned upon by the court. One of the reasons was that they had chosen to take off their clothes, they were also drunk most of the time, so they were considered responsible for being robbed. The other reason is that it was considered bad for a man to mix with a prostitute, which is why in many cases there was no prosecution: the victim was too ashamed of admitting that he had been with a prostitute.<ref name=":0" />

In those cases, since the jury was often inclined to despise the prosecutor and to side with the defendant, when they did not completely acquit the woman they often reached a [[partial verdict]] and this mostly meant [[Penal transportation|transportation]]<ref name=":0" /> to America (that is the case for ''[[Moll Flanders]]''<ref name=":3" />), and to Australia later on.