Nov
16
Career pickpockets on the wane
ByAs crime has waned in the subways and New York City has seen its return to glory and riches, petty criminals are no longer turning to a career in pickpocketing, Pete Donohue reports. Transit cops say that those folks making a career out of nabbing a wallot — or an iPhone — are not the teenagers of yesteryear. Rather, they are careerists in the 40s and 50s who aren’t training a young generation of thieves. “You don’t find young picks,” Nelson Dones, a detective with the NYPD’s transit bureau, said. “It’s going to die out.”
Donohue’s article delves into the way in which cops “keep tabs” on 40 career pickpockets including a 63-year-old and a 75-year-old who “take extreme pride” in their work. No longer though are cops seeing teenagers learning the trade — a happening thirty years ago that Donohue calls an “urban apprenticeship.” I guess today’s criminals are more content with a grab-and-run than the subtlety of a pick. Anyway, no one is going to miss getting his or her pocket picked, and there’s no reason to glamorize formerly prevalent means of subway crime.
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That’s because they are getting there MBA’s in finance & going to work on Wall Street. Why pick one person at a time, when you can pick an entire corporation or country in one fell swoop.
…and not have to ride the subway with all those lowly office workers, thereby saving another $2.25 on top of the millions they steal. Ingeious!
Notice how criminals can make a mockery out of the system.
The police are keeping tabs on those “career pickpockets”,
and yet they are not in prison where they belong.
“A pick with a record can expect two years in prison if convicted of grand larceny, one undercover said.”
…
“The skells’ mug shots line a wall inside the detectives’ office.”
so, yes, they’ve been in prison
I wonder how many of them have ACTUALLY done time.
Remember that a mug shot proves only that somebody has been arrested, not that he was convicted and imprisoned.
Also remember it’s the Wall Street criminals that influence Washington & those who serve it.