KENTUCKY — The Commonwealth now has a beefed up “porch pirate” law, which now makes it a felony, if you are caught stealing packages from doorsteps and porches. 

During this In Focus Kentucky segment, Ben Stickle, Ph.D., an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Administration at Middle Tennessee State Universty who teaches courses on policing, investigations, and qualitative research methods, explains how the pandemic has been attributed to the rise in package theft and he also shares tips on how to stop porch pirates from stealing your packages from your outside your home.

“Since this is really a crime of opportunity, removing the opportunity is absolutely the best thing that you can do. So, if you can schedule your packages to be delivered, have one or two days of a week, and make sure that you're there so you can take them inside as soon as they arrive, that's an excellent idea. You can ask for the delivery to be to the side of the house or maybe set it behind a plant or a bench or something you have on the front porch that kind of conceals at least most of the view from the roadway of the packages. You can have home parcel lockers. There's a variety of those that are on the market today that you can look for and have a lockable storage container on your front porch,” explains Dr. Stickle.

You can watch the full In Focus segment in the player above.