...give him a shoot of jet, anything.
I had the luck to see a pickpocket in action in a metro station. The victim had -no- chance at all to notice him.
It would be new form of abuse.
You'd have to be able to deal with it non-violent way, like grabbing the thieving hand and call for a policeman to serve justice.The abuse is in temporal character of the feature - and defender not having it under control. As they've already said, thief would close inventory immediately as he see you preparing to strike, and enjoying you getting killed because he can no longer be attacked without retribution.If it was something like yelling help, using steal back on him or whatever to achieve effect of thief getting caught it'd work. But honestly that's what skill check is for.