A Study On Some Controversial Issues Of Pick-pocketing Theft

Pick-pocketing refers to steal others’ carry-on property in public or on public vehicles. The key explanation to the "public place" focus on "public". "Public" is relative to "private", "general" means sharing or communion, designing for private can not be regarded as public places, such as private house, office. Meanwhile, the "public places" is an objective concept, stealing others’ carry-on property on fewer number places also belongs to pick-pocketing. "Carry-on property" refers to the property which is placed snugly and the disposable property which can be controlled by the victims.The theft crime of pick-pocketing belongs to the crime of property violation, the protection of the legal interests is the possession of the property in fact. The only behaviors of pick-pocketing which did not get property in fact or did not make people lose possession don’t violate the protection of legal interests in the Criminal Law. The crime of pick-pocketing still belongs to consequential offense. When the stolen property is controlled by the thief in fact the crime of pick-pocketing is accomplished. To be specific, for the small property, as long as the thief picks them out from the controllers’ wallet the thief takes the control of the stolen property, that means the crime accomplished. For the property who has a large volume, whether the crime is accomplished or not depends on whether it happens on a controlled area. If the pick-pocketing happens in public places without controlled regions,the crime accomplished when the thief takes the property to the area that the victims can not control. If the pick-pocketing happens in public places within controlled area, it can not sentenced as accomplished offense until the thief escapes from the controlled area. For attempted pick-pocketing, it should be investigated for criminal liability according to the regulations of attempted pick-pocketing. The other serious circumstances should refer to the provision in the Article 264 of Criminal Law about the other serious circumstances.There is no limitation on "large amount" in amended Bill of Criminal Law(eighth), but it doesn’t mean that all the pick-pocketing should be punished neglecting the amount. The proviso, Article 13 of the Criminal Law in China, aims at reducing the range that the Criminal Law punishes, as well showing its value. Punishing all the pick-pocketing not only violates the tolerant rule, but also enlarges the range of crime, and increases the amount of criminal, breaks the compatibility between the Criminal Law and Public Security Management Punishment Law, wastes judicial sources while increases its burden. At present,the Criminal Law and other relative laws in China haven’t reach a standard to incriminate pick-pocketing, which results in the situations that pick-pocketing cases are handled discretionarily by judicial authorities. The fundamental way to solve this problem is that, the highest judicial authority should release documents to make the standard. Now that there is no judicial standard at present,some legal slight behaviors can be excluded in criminal procedure. According to Criminal Procedure Law, for the harmless cases, the doer would undertake no criminal responsibilities through no recording in public security apartment, no sue in procuratorate, and innocent in the court.