JONESBORO, Ark. (KAIT) – As online shopping ramps up for the holidays, the likelihood of porch pirates stealing your packages also increases.

Jason Allen of the Craighead County Sheriff’s Office said in the last few years, they have seen an uprising in porch pirates in the area.

“The day and age we live in now, everyone gets everything offline. The last few years we‘ve seen an uprising in porch pirates, people stealing packages off porches,” he said.

During the shopping season, a lot of packages will be delivered to people’s doorsteps.

“People get the insurance policies on the packages and stuff when they’re in transit,” he said. “Nobody thinks about once they get delivered to their home, if they are not there, what happens after that and once they get delivered.”

According to Forbes, nearly 40% of Americans had packages stolen from them in 2023, costing an estimated $9 billion.

Allen said that law enforcement can only do so much with the limited resources they have to combat porch pirates.

“We’re out patrolling every day, we also try to educate people on not only just their packages at your homes but when you’re out shopping locally to keep your doors locked, keep things covered up,” he said.

Residents can mitigate porch pirating with cameras, but Allen said there’s another thing you can do to secure those packages.

“There are delivery boxes that you can get offline, and it’s like a service at your local post office, you put the package in there, it goes into a secure area, and the only thing they got out is the key, that’s my big advice to people is to get some kind of delivery box that’s secure on your porch,” he said.

Allen said the community can step up and help each other as well.

“If you have neighbors that are home all day, just ask, ‘Hey. Do you care to pick up my package?’ There’s many things you can do to combat that, it’s just you know, neighbors helping neighbors, if you see something that don’t look right, report that,” he said.

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