I know this is coming a bit close to Christmas, but it seems to have risen to the top of my social feed of late, so here goes. Shreveport has been struck by a spree of package thefts this holiday season, so I am here to talk about how to keep your packages safe and make some suggestions on how SPD could work on the issue in the future.

First, let’s start with some suggestions for you, the intended recipient of a package:

  • Ship to your place of work. If your boss doesn’t mind, have your packages sent to the office. It’s also likely that you’ll get your packages earlier as businesses are prioritized by package delivery services.
  • Ship to someone who stays at or works from home. If there’s someone you know who stays at or works from home, consider shipping your packages to them (with their permission of course).
  • Require a signature. If you have the option, request that a signature be acquired by the delivery service when checking out of an online store or if you are the one sending a package. This means the company won’t leave the package unless someone signs for it. When someone is unavailable, they will reattempt or hold it at a shipping location.
  • Ship to the delivery services’ location. You can ship a FedEx package to any FedEx store and they will hold it for you. Same with UPS. Then you can go at your convenience to pick it up at lunch or after work. Be sure to choose a location with late hours if you need extra time. This is a nearly foolproof method of keeping packages safe, and they are usually available the morning of the expected delivery date and won’t sit on a truck all day.

Now, let’s some things local law enforcement can do. Certainly a few package snatchers have been caught as of late due to some surveiance footage, but deterrence might be a next step if things continue like this next year.

One police unit in California put out decoy packages with GPS trackers. When the packages were picked up, police followed the signal and find the perp. More patrols could be made in areas likely to be targeted by thieves creating a visual deterrent. These options take time and precious resources and, as was pointed out to me by a friend, there may not be enough crime of this kind to warrant such an investment. Only an assessment of overall crime stats with the number of police reports can determine for sure. Police reports can only exist if calls are made by people whose packages are stolen. And then it’s a matter of finding out if it was really stolen or misdelivered.

At the end of the day, it’s a tough issue to discuss for a number of reasons – mostly the human element. I certainly don’t like people going to jail. I’m not even 100% sold on the idea of stings. Certainly when a mother drags her 13 year old into a crime, it’s hard to look at the child and blame them outright when they were taught to do so by the people most important in their lives.

A friend of mine who worked with at risk youth once told me about a young boy who wasn’t fed or allowed in the house unless they brought something of value to the doorstep. These are the realities of the communities around us. They are the result of many factors, but one can’t help but imagine that if good jobs, good schooling, and adequate community activities were available that this would be less likely to happen. Maybe.

We should all be thinking about those in tough situations and those victims forced to become criminals by the culture or home circumstance they find themselves in and not just those who commit crime simply for personal gain. It doesn’t make a loss of a Christmas present easier, but it does add some perspective to the discussion of crime in Shreveport, which is far more complex than most people seem to think. We hope to continue this discussion in 2017. Until then, send your package elsewhere to pick it up.