According to this comment: "Victorian England publicly hanged pickpockets..." https://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/54pw0y/condemned_to_die_2011_documentary_about_the_two/d84k8py
Is this true? It's seems wildly beyond the belief that the punishment should fit the crime.
Apologies if this has been asked before, a cursory search of "pick pocket hang" didn't have any results.
Victorian England did not as the death penalty for pick pocketing was removed prior to Victoria coming to the throne. However....
Prior to Victoria coming to the throne in 1837 there had been some 200 crimes (referred to now - but not at the time as the Bloody Code) that had a mandatory punishment of death. Everything from murder to "strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7–14 years of age". The vast majority of the death penalty crimes were added during the later 18th century as property crimes became more and more an issue of concern for the wealthy - especially as society began to change from agricultural to city dwelling.
The Black Acts in 1723 added at a stroke 50 new death penalty crimes related to poaching and being out at night (out at night with your face blackened = death penalty).
The numbers of crimes for which the death penalty could be applied began declining after 1808 (when a number of the personal property crimes were removed). In 1823 the death penalty was made discretionary in all but a few cases, the great reform acts in the 1830s reduced the numbers by 2/3s and further reforms over the next 30 years meant that by the 1860s only 5 crimes were punishable by death (murder, espionage, arson in a dockyard, piracy and treason).
Having said that, the numbers of those convicted and actually executed was not 100%, a large number were actually transported to the US, and then Australia - in particular juries would often determine that the amount stolen was under the limit (12d or 5/- depending on the crime) for the death penalty and transportation would be used instead.
As the saying (in its various forms) goes - “Better to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb”.
Some Sources: Hanging in the Balance: A History of the Abolition of Capital Punishment in Britain - Block and Hostettler
A History of the English Criminal Law and its Administration from 1750 - Radzinowicz