Dong Hui/Shanghai Daily news

Pick-pocketing and bag snatching have declined by about 20 percent this year, city police said yesterday.

The number of cases of pick-pocketing up to October dropped by 18 percent compared with the same period last year, said Yang Weigen of the city public security authority. The average number of cases reported daily dropped by 35 or 17.2 percent - last year at least 200 victims in the city had their pockets picked or bags snatched every day.