I also have an inner zipped pocket in my hiking trousers which I have tried, but when I place something in them, their angle against my leg just makes for uncomfortable hiking, so I do not bother now. I also have a hiking shirt with a zipped pocket but for me that doesn't work well either. If I place, for example, my cards there my rucksack shoulder strap has a habit of pressing the cards directly onto my nipple, after a few miles I get very sore. I think no solution is going to be anywhere near perfect, all I've tried to do is work out something that for me is just 'good enough' to live with.
Sorry about my comment, when I read your first entry it made me smile, which is why I thought of newspaper headlines. Theft and the distress it brings is not good for anyone.
I have always been interested in how people sometimes view things and people around them, what they see, what they think they see and what perhaps they want to see. I have no problem with 'the thieves were two young black males'. As a male from a Gypsy background and upbringing I know that I have a 'certain sensitivity' about how easily we judge people, often badly. My mother for example would go up the wall if we dared to identify someone, just an example, just as a 'white man'. We always had to find a way to describe what we meant by using the 'man' word first, so we had to learn things like 'the man who is white'. People have often scoffed at how I try to speak about people but I beleive that for me, the difference between a 'white man' and a 'man who is white is a very important thing to understand.
Likewise as a hiker I know that some people will look at me and judge that I am nothing more than a vagrant! It happens!