Petty Crime In Europe

I guess it is how you define prevalent and tolerated. I have read official reports that suggest that about 1 in 4 tourists will have some theft problem and that was trying to pick up the under reporting. The official rate is lower. When you read the travel sites it could be 90%. We have spent nearly a year in Europe over the past 18 years with no problem. Are we unusual? Maybe but I don't think so. It is not interesting to talk or write about not being robbed. Tolerated is similar. As tourists we have no idea what is happening legally. If you are a victim it is hard to give a description of the theft, so naturally the police are not going to do much. Plus, if they do catch someone you are not going to hang around to testify. So my assessment is that petty theft MAY be higher but treated about the same as the US.

Maybe because of the big attractions that draw large crowds of tourists in those cities. Comparing Paris or Rome to an entire country like Germany does not make for a fair comparison. Touring castles (for example) in France and Germany would make for a better comparison.

I too think the prevalence of such petty crimes is lower than it may seem on forums or watching travel shows. Our "job" is to warn people and try to make them aware and cautious so they take precautions like money belts. And people are more likely to post something that HAS happened to them rather than something that HAS NOT. In all the time I've spent traveling all over Western Europe, I can count on one hand the times someone may have even tried something on me. But I still take precautions. And I know people that have been victims. As to why petty crime is "tolerated," you'll undoubtedly find many varied reasons. From difficulty in catching people in the act, victims that are mostly foreign and unable to push prosecution, lenient laws, lax enforcement, rates of poverty, etc... The same question could be asked why the US "tolerates" violent crime and seems unable to eliminate it.

The vast majority of tourists suffer no crime of any sort. The threat of a purse-snatch etc. may be a little higher for tourists, since they don't know their surroundings, but the locals can be targets too, yet they survive just fine. I'd be as wary in Baltimore as in Paris, and on my frequent visits to Detroit I am at a much greater theat of violence than in Europe. No reason to stay home, though. Heads-up, cope.

I watched an interesting show once on the roma people and petty crime in Paris. They are not tolerated, but they are difficult to deal with, many of the pickpockets , thiefs and petition girls are underage, and in France they do not imprison children, they are returned to their parents. Their parents however are the problem, of course the children are not set straight by the adults, but sent out to work some more! The French cannot have one law for their citizens and one for the Roma. They tried sending some of the illegals out of the country a year or two ago, and human rights groups got all into it.. said it was unfair etc. So what do to, I personally have seen police in Paris stop and question young ladies who appear to be Roma,, and I have also seen how sometime the beggers etc scatter when police walk near them, so safe to assume they do not feel the police are tolerating them . I also think the incidents seem to be more frequent on forums as negative interactions are more reported( to educate newbies etc). I have been going for decades and the beggers are NOT new, I remember seeing them back in the early 70s ( it was shocking to me as a child as we didn't have that here, moms nursing dirty babies while lying on the ground with their hands out!) Now that my small city has its own issues, ( thanks to crack cocaine and meth) I find Europe alot safer/cleaner looking then my own downtown.

Why is it more prevalent: probably due to the narrower streets and crowds. You don't see it happening on large boulevards. We've had a few theft attempts by both French teens and Roma female teens over the years, and we're half French. None of these were in tourists areas. I also watched French teens jump another in the Concorde metro at 4 p.m. on a Saturday. It happened so fast that no one realized what had happened. But it wasn't the first time for the victim; he carried a fake wallet the way joggers used to carry mugging money in NY. Do the French police turn the other way: no way. This week they broke up a ring of children from Rumania controlled by family members. But this is small stuff compared to the frightening ring from Eastern Europe of house thieves they broke up this week. Women who had been sold to the gangs were forced to commit the burglaries and produce a large quantity of stolen goods. You can see it yourself online on the French TV2 20:00 news. There has been a surge in mafia activity from the former eastern block since the wall came down.