Rep. Clyde Vanel, D-Queens Village, speaks at a policy forum that discussed actions needed to close the opportunity gap for tech careers in New York and strengthen education and training infrastructure technology in Queens.
Assemblyman Clyde Vanel, D-Queens Village, introduced A.8473 to establish the crime of package theft in the fourth, third, second and first degrees. The bills would make it a Class A misdemeanor to take another's package worth more than $1, a Class E felony to take another's package when it is worth more than $25 or if two or more packages are taken, a class D felony taking another's package where the package contains drugs, one or more medical devices, or medical device parts and a class B felony to take another person's packaging when the packaging has marks, words or symbols indicating that the packaging contains medicines, one or more medical devices or parts of medical devices, and a person suffers from a problem serious health.
“With the rise of online shopping, a new insidious form of theft has emerged: package theft. “Porch Pirates“as they are often called, usually break into a person's property and steal their packages or steal directly from delivery trucks themselves,” Vanel wrote in his legislative justification. “This theft is particularly troubling during the holidays, as many New Yorkers save throughout the year to purchase gifts via e-commerce and are left with nothing to show for it – and often no recourse. Worse yet, because package thieves move so quickly, they usually don't look at what's inside the package before taking it. As a result, many cases of theft of life-saving medicines and medical devices have been recorded.
Most police departments don't track package thefts in their own category, meaning a lack of national data. But, according to the Associated Press, some police departments have begun to classify package theft reports into their own category. In Denver, Colorado, for example, more than 1,260 package theft incidents have been reported this year, up from about 750 four years ago. Separately, a product research company called the Chamber of Commerce said it surveyed 1,250 U.S. consumers in October and found that 26 percent had been victims of package theft. The problem is roughly split between urban and suburban areas, it says, and only 18 percent of consumers whose packages were stolen reported it to police. Another report, which draws on various sources and was compiled by the Capitol One bank, shows that 14% of Americans were victims of porch hacking last year. These thefts represented $29.2 billion in losses.
Stealing packages delivered by the U.S. Postal Service is already a federal crime. Penalties for accepting packages delivered by private carriers, like UPS or Amazon, are up to state laws. A bill to extend federal penalties to packages delivered by private carriers was introduced in Congress last year by U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat. This legislation is at a standstill. Texas, New Jersey and Michigan have imposed their own tougher penalties against porch hacking. Vanel wants New York to join them.
File – Packages are stacked in front of the door of a home on October 27, 2021, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. Retailers and delivery companies have attempted to combat the theft of delivered packages in a variety of ways. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, file)
“Strengthening laws against package theft will serve as a deterrent to would-be hackers and also serve as a tool for prosecutors to seek tougher penalties against these bad actors,” Vanel wrote.