Sex disparities in the incidence-arrest statistics for juvenile thieves may stem from preconceived stereotypes impacting bystanders' social-cognitive processing of a bicycle theft. After reading vignettes describing a bicycle theft, bystanders' reliance on male-as-juvenile-thief stereotypes enhanced their recall of crime and appearance features for the male thief and in their interpretation of his intimidation of a child victim. Bystander sex also affected the results by enhancing appearance recall for the same sex thief. Women interpreted the intentions of the adolescent thieves as stealing, whereas men interpreted the intentions as borrowing. Bystanders endorsed the decision for the father to bring the stolen bicycle to the attention of the police, especially when the victim was a girl, and agreed the police should be involved. The bystanders would be credible witnesses as they could provide the actus reus and mens rea to support a case of larceny-theft and describe the thief.