Is pickpocketing still a problem in Barcelona even though people don't carry cash anymore?

As someone who’s lived in Bcn for 13 years, I can confirm that it’s still a problem, from seeing it for myself and first-hand reports. I know policemen and women and they have also confirmed as much.

Going off on a tangent slightly, it’s true that pickpocketing is barely penalised, with repeat offenders literally getting caught each night and at most spending a night in a cell. It sounds ludicrous, and in fact, if you are a victim and you hit your thief you are more likely to get into trouble as violence is strictly penalised. But, the result is that Barcelona is generally a safe place as thieves will usually avoid confrontation and just hand back whatever they’ve taken if caught in the act.

Not to take anything from the excellent, accepted answer, but I’d question the OP’s assumption that pickpockets are only interested in cash.

A few years back, my wife’s purse was taken from her handbag in the British Museum. She lost some fifty pounds in cash, but the first we knew about any of it was when she got a call from her bank. The thief had done a fast tour of all the local convenience stores, and at each store, (s)he had bought £20-30 of alcohol and cigarettes on each contactless card my wife had in her purse (both debit and credit). The total loss on cards was very much larger than the cash loss, although of course it was reimbursed by the bank (debit cards) or simply cancelled (credit cards).

The thief will have resold those goods at a substantial markdown, but I’m pretty sure a good crop of contactless cards is at least as valuable to a thief as a reasonable amount of cash, moreso since the contactless transaction limit was raised to £100.

Based on spending months in Barcelona, pickpockets still are an issue in the city. Anywhere that tourists congregate in Barcelona — on La Rambla walking street, in front of Sagrada Familia cathedral, on the beach in Barceloneta, and in the metro, for example — pickpockets inevitably are at work.

Of course, this is not a problem only in Barcelona; it is not uncommon in other locations that also have a large number of tourists. Barcelona is one of my favorite cities — it certainly is one of the world’s best for walking — but it also is a statistical reality that there are more pickpockets in Barcelona than there are in plenty of other places that also have many tourists and people.

The reasons for pickpockets in Barcelona are numerous. It is a largely affluent city with pockets of not insignificant poverty (El Raval, for example), receives millions of tourists a year (including tourists from cruise ships that may only be visiting the city for a few hours), and Spain has long had very high unemployment rates.

Perhaps most notably, though, the historic penalties for getting caught as a pickpocket in Barcelona were negligible (theft less than €400 was barely a crime). There reportedly was a change in the law this summer to make prosecution of repeat offenders more likely, which may help, but the statistics have not changed much yet:

According to police figures, between January and the end of May this
year there were 34,000 thefts reported in the city, around 225 per
day. So not quite the 12 per hour of 2018, but not far off, averaging
just over nine per hour.

By comparison, London has roughly 127 reported pickpockets a day and it is a much larger city. It might not be fair to label Barcelona the pickpocket "Capital of Europe" — a lot more data would be needed to really verify such a title — but it definitely does have a lot of pickpockets.

Although Covid substantially reduced cash usage around the world, southern Europe still has much higher rates of cash use than northern Europe — 53% of transactions in Spain are in cash — so there still is plenty of cash that can be stolen in Barcelona.

Payment cards, passports and IDs, jewelry, watches, personal electronics, designer bags and luggage itself also remain targets of theft. Cards commonly can be used for some small transactions before being disabled. Identity documents can be resold and often combined with stolen online information for identity theft by transnational crime syndicates. Jewelry, watches, designer goods, and at least some personal electronics still have plenty of resale value in the hands of sophisticated criminals, as well.

If the risk of a penalty is close to zero — as it long has been for being a pickpocket in Barcelona — the reward is greater than zero, and the alternative very well could be unemployment (zero), it doesn’t take much of a return on investment for an activity to continue.

It is best to keep the answer specific to Barcelona — and the areas mentioned are the most precise advice that can be provided — but to protect yourself, not carrying much in the way of valuables is a good first step. It also is smart to not wear flashy clothing, jewelry, or watches and be aware of your surroundings and cautious of your belongings regardless of their value when in Barcelona.