The Limitation Of Pickpocketing Constitutes Theft

In recent years, an increasing number of pickpockets occur in our everyday life, which seriously undermining public security and public order. In order to effectively deal with pickpocketing crime, pickpocketing theft is defined as a new statutory type of the larceny, and it was officially written into the "Criminal Law Amendment(Eight). As we can see from the legislative history of pickpocketing into crime, pickpocketing was punished only for administrative penalties by the early, to further the amount of property and times of standard as the crime condition, pure of pickpocketing crime theft can be deemed as a crime at last, the restrictions to pickpocketing into crime getting lower and lower in legislation, the nature of pickpocketing behavior also changed from general violations to criminal offenses. Pickpockets were absorbed into adjustment category of the Criminal Law, it will contribute to combat with pickpocketing crime and protect our property.However, the criminalization of pickpockets is necessary, it satisfy with the demand of people’s requirements to combat with pickpocketing, but it also cause many problems and puzzles in judicial practice. The criminalization of pickpockets is not restricted by number and times, which will reduce the existing space of the Administrative Law, violate the principle of tolerance of the Criminal Law; occupy too much judicial resources, lead to the reality of increasing the burden on the judicial practice, causing selective enforcement, and undermining the authority of the law itself; intensify social contradictions, and do harm to innovation of social management system; do damage to the overall balance pattern of larceny and property crime overall balance pattern, as a result, it is necessary to set some limitation.In order to get rid of the dilemma, we must seek a unified way to set some limitation of the criminalization of pickpockets, The author thinks that the saving clause is the legal basis to set some limitation on incorporating the pickpockets into criminal law, if the offence is obviously minor and lead to no serious harm, the crime can’t be deemed as a crime. Based on the theory of dualism of illegality, Only when the pickpockets satisfy with minimum standards of illegality of typology of the crime constitutions of the larceny and also accord with the quality and quantity of the larceny’s illegality, the offence can be deemed as a crime. The scope of public places of pickpocketing must be defined as a place with a lot of people and the place has the unspecified persons; as for the property to carry, it can be defined as the property placed on the victim’s body and it has a small volume; in addition, the pickpockets also should meet the standard of the property which is stolen by pickpocketing is worthy of protected by the Criminal Law.The article is divided into four parts:The first part, study on the legislative history of pickpocketing, and based on this find out the process of pickpocketing behavior gradually into the criminal justice system in the development of Chinese Criminal Law, it can help us to have a further understanding of pickpocketing. Then, give a detailed description about practical basis and theoretical basis of pickpocketing behavior into crime. The second part analyzes the necessity of limiting pickpocketing into crime. The criminalization of pickpockets is not restricted by number and times, which will produce many problems in actual practice. This will be harmful to the justice and authority of judicature, so it is necessary to set some limitation on pickpocketing into crime. The third part, research on seek a unified way to set some limitation to the criminalization of pickpockets, the saving clause is the legal basis of the limitation of the criminalization of pickpockets; dualism of illegality is the basic idea of reducing the quantity of picketing. The fourth part, the way to set some limitation to the criminalization of pickpockets in judicial practice expanded. This part tell us how use the theory in the third part to reduce the quantity of pickpocketing in practice.