Banditry in middle earth and the third age

[Boromir88]

There must be bandits, robbers, thieves...etc in Middle-earth. Afterall, every society has laws and thus every society is going to have people who break them and like-minded criminals will band together. Since this is story primarily revolving around war, you're not going to get too much detailing the common bandits, but there are glimpses.

Some examples already pointed out here, including Harry and Bill Ferny banding to join Sharkey's men. Even in the Shire, there were hobbits who joined up with Sharkey's men.

You can call Shagrat and Gorbag talking about getting trusty lads together to raid and loot away from the "big bosses" is a conversation about forming an orc-gang.

I also think in Lord of the Rings, you have to look at the path that the Fellowship travelled. Much of it was not on a main road or paths that are travelled often. What good does it do bandits, who survive by looting travelers to be on paths that don't get travelled or are secret? The hobbits go through the Old Forest - no bandits will be in there, there are things far more dangerous (heh suddenly reminded of the 3 dangers in the fire swamp. ). Aragorn leading them from Bree to Rivendell, I'm a little rusty but he seems to have some trouble as he's taking a path he hasn't travelled in a long time and Rivendell is a hidden refuge that's hard to find even for those who have been there before. They can't go through the gap of Rohan and decide to try to go over the Misty Mountains but are beaten by a mysteriously violent blizzard and "spirit of Caradhras." So they have to go through Moria, which is infested with goblins and home to a demonic spirit from the First Age. After finding refuge in Lothlorien, the rest of the Fellowship's journey is floating down a river.

In The Hobbit there is a humorous conversation on how the dwarves hire Bilbo as a burglar. The dwarves say the sign that Gandalf put on the door means "burglar wants a good job, plenty of excitement and reasonable reward." Bilbo is offended by the thought of being hired as a burglar.