America’s crime wave is coming to your front door if it has not hit there already.
Porch piracy — the theft of brand-new, unopened items in packages lying just outside the sanctuary of your home’s living space — is a hot trend. Especially coveted items include large-screen televisions, cell phones and anything from high-end retailers. But even the loss of items such as baby formula, prescription medicines and medical devices can be highly disruptive.
Ben Stickle at Middle Tennessee State University, one of the country’s top experts on porch piracy, found in a thorough pre-pandemic study that 24% of 562 respondents surveyed in 49 states had been a victim of porch piracy. The pandemic drove a significant increase in package deliveries and, consequently, in thefts.
A late 2021 survey by SafeWise, a home security publication, put the figure at 64%, with 53.5% having multiple packages stolen. The hardest hit cities in 2021, according to SafeWise: Denver, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Seattle and San Antonio.