From the could be worse file

Anchorage residents regularly reading the social media website Nextdoor could easily come to the conclusion that Alaska’s largest city is the American stronghold for porch pirates.

Door-camera footage posted there almost daily catches a package being stolen off someone’s steps or deck, and some posters have reported spotting thieves following Amazon trucks around the city, then snatching packages almost as fast as they are dropped off.

But take heart that Alaska, an all too often winner of gold medals for bad behavior, is this time back in the pack tied for the bronze.

Yes, according to a press release from Fulfillment.com, “Kentucky tops the ranking, with 12 percent of residents reporting a recent package theft, the highest share in the country. What’s striking is that despite the frequency, the median stolen package value is $78, suggesting thefts are common but often involve everyday items rather than big-ticket purchases.

“North Dakota is second with an 11 percent rate, yet records the lowest median loss among the top ten at $63. Alaska, Iowa and Nebraska all report 10 percent theft rates, but their financial impact varies widely. Alaska mirrors the lower-value trend at $75, while Iowa stands out sharply with $200 stolen per incident, tying for the highest median loss nationwide. Nebraska sits in between, with thefts averaging $100.”

The Top 10

The porch pirate top 10/Fulfillment.com

Fulfillment’s data appears to have come from Security.org, a company involved in testing and reviewing home security products, which in November posted a “Package Theft Report” detailing rampant porch piracy in the U.S.

“One in four Americans (or 64 million people) has had a package stolen at some point, and 9 million adults have had a package stolen in just the last three months,” the company reported then. 

“Package thieves stole $8.2 billion worth of online orders over the past year (2025), with each stolen package worth about $222 on average.”

Given the size of that latter number, Anchorage residents should probably be happy about the $75 median value of a package stolen in the state’s largest city, but none of us can ever be happy, nor should we be, about being hit by thieves.

The good news here, if there is any good news, is that Security, which has been tracking package thefts for the past five years, reported a slight drop in porch piracy from 2024 to 2025. But this might have been due to the ever-increasing volume of packages showing up on doorsteps as Americans shift more and more to online shopping.

After examining expected delivery numbers for this year, plus theft rates and average package values in 2025, Security estimated that “that 37 million packages will be stolen this year, totaling more than $8 billion in merchandise.”

That’s a lot of thievery.

The website did offer some advice on how to put an end to porch piracy, other than putting a vicious guard dog in your yard and leaving a note for the deliveryman to just toss the package over the fence.

The website quoted Gene Petrino, a retired Florida police sergeant and former SWAT commander, advising that his “number one package theft tip is to eliminate opportunity.

‘Thieves can’t steal what they can’t see. Have packages delivered to a secure location – like an Amazon Locker, UPS Access Point, or your workplace – or schedule deliveries for times when someone is home. Visible security cameras and motion lighting help, but the most effective deterrent is removing the target altogether.”

This does take some of the convenience out of online shopping, but it is what it is and easier than moving to somewhere on the low end of the porch piracy scale.

The bottom five/Security.org

The friendly state

Three states – Connecticut, Michigan and Utah – appear to have a porch pirate problem a tenth the size of that in Alaska. And Georgia and New Jersey come in with a problem a fifth the size.

But generally, according to Security, “the Midwest is the safest area for packages….The best place for package safety would be a single-family home in a suburban Michigan town. Since that’s an unrealistic prevention tactic for most Americans, let’s talk about what to do if a package goes missing.”

Security offers the obvious and usual advice here:

• Make sure the package was indeed stolen and that someone in the family didn’t pick it up for safety and toss it in the house (yes, this happens), or that it wasn’t wrongly delivered to a neighbor’s door (yes, this happens, too.)
• Notify the police if the package has been stolen. The odds are low this will result in the recovery of your merchandise, though law enforcement does sometimes break up theft rings and recover hordes of packages. Mainly, though, identifying porch-piracy hotspots can lead to increased police patrolling in areas where theft is the worst.
• Contact the seller. Many online retailers, recognizing the porch piracy problem of today, now replace stolen goods.
• Check your home insurance policy to see if it covers theft. Many do, but there is usually a deductible to be paid. And contact your credit card company, which may be able to stop payment on the purchase. This leaves the seller taking the hit for the theft, but a moral argument can be made that you’re not responsible for paying for a package you never received.

And keep in mind that if you’re shopping online with a major, brick-and-mortar retailer – Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Kroger/Fred Meyer, Safeway, REI and more, the list is long – in-store pickup is available for merchandise purchased online.

Some of these businesses now also do same-day delivery to your doorstep from their in-city stores, making it easier to order things on a day when you know you’re going to be at home and can meet the delivery person at the door.

In a perfect world, of course, you wouldn’t have to worry about all this, but the world isn’t perfect. And, in this particular case, Alaska appears even less perfect than 45 of the other 50 states, although there are some places in Alaska better than others.

Sirix, a website that analyzes crime data, notes that the Anchorae neighborhoods of Fairview, Mountain View and Spenard, plus the Fairbanks downtown area and the Mendenhall Valley outside Juneau, have disproportionately high crime rates even for Alaska.

And it says that despite Alaska’s struggle “with some of the nation’s highest crime rates, a few towns stand out for their exceptional safety. The FBI and local reports show that Haines, Wrangell, Cordova, Valdez, and Seward consistently rank as the safest cities in Alaska.”

But then you have to live semi-remote, and most Alaskans foot with their feet in favor of the Anchorage Metropolitan area now home to more than half the state’s population.

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