I agree with Sciamano. I do not understand the paranoia with Rome. There are no lurking thieves carrying around sharp knives to slash open your purse, or to pick the lock on your backpack to steal your wallet on a major street like Via Condotti, or even on a train or a bus. That's not going to happen.

There are no people riding around on a Vespa ready to rip off your purse by holding a pair of scissors with one hand, while driving the scooter with the other, to clip the strap on your purse and take off with it. Jeez, I don't know where these fantasies come from.

It's just like people think that NYC is unsafe when it is one of the safest cities in the USA, and Rome is even safer than that!

The two videos I posted are typical. A group of three picks you up as a mark, as happens in Times Square in New York, and in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. if you are an obvious mark, you will be spotted by desperate people who need money. Don't be that person.

I'm sure that Sciamano doesn't walk around Rome worried about being pickpocketed. I don't walk through the Tenderloin in San Francisco, the bad part of town, where I go through frequently because I have to go through there to get to the Italian Institute, afraid that I'm going to get mugged. I don't even cross the street when I see potential muggers. Having grown up in cities, I automatically judge the context, and it's usually clear on both sides that I'm not the person they are looking for. If they are standing there with a gun, the context changes. It's the same in Rome, but they won't be carrying a gun. It just takes basic knowledge so that a pickpocketing team doesn't select you as the next easy target.

The two articles quoted are basically the same article. Neither one lists an author, but it is clear that they were written by the same person who took the same old material out of a drawer. They admit it in the article, and neither article says that Romans fear being pickpocketed.

They both say the same generic things, "thousands of commuters and tens of pickpocketers are on the train." Therefore, take basic precautions such as, "Don't carry your wallet in your back pocket," "pickpockets are not dirty, poorly dressed people, they look normal," "don't let people crowd around you," "Don't carry your purse behind you, keep it in front of you," "for women, your money, cell phone, and documents should be in a zippered compartment in your zippered purse," Etcetera.

Neither one says that Romans fear pickpocketers. That would not make sense. You develop a radar when you live in a city, telling you how to detect danger, and you avoid it. Romans don't walk around afraid of being pick-pocketed, any more than I walk around SF or NYC and fear getting mugged. It can happen, but the odds are very low. I'm much more worried about getting hit by a car.

I've seen Romans involved in pickpocketing, usually to stop it! I saw an older Roman man running towards a young guy running up an escalator, yelling, "borsagiatorre!" Meaning that the guy running had stolen his wallet. The guy never made it up the escalator before two even older men on the escalator tackled the young man and held him down until the police came. On more than a few occasions I've seen older Roman women yelling at women who were trying to pickpocket tourists, and telling the tourists to pay attention.

There are no thieves on Vespas, with Kevlar piercing knives to slash open your backpack, or who are going to pickpocket the lock on your backpack. There are just thieves who make use of the opportunity to take advantage of those who make it very easy to get their stuff stolen. I'm not trying to blame the victim, but it's not very hard to prevent that from happening to you, and the stuff about Rome and crime is vastly overblown.