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EDITORIAL
Crime of the time
There was another person doing the rounds over the festive period in 2021, but this one wasn’t wearing red and white sporting a large beard and leaving presents for all of the good children. This visitor was one of the people on Santa’s naughty list....
One thing you can guarantee in the security industry is that whenever we experience change there’s a bunch of criminals ready to find a way to exploit the situation. Due to the climate of home shopping and the subsequent convenience of home deliveries taking the place of visiting town centres in 2021, the number of parcels being dropped off by delivery drivers was estimated to hit around the one billion mark in the month of December. While the sight of a Royal Mail van is nothing new, the presence of a Hermes, DPD, DX etc van popping around the estates of the UK has become a familiar sight thanks to the ease of online shopping. Unfortunately it now appears that there is another vehicle we need to keep an eye out for, and this one is not bringing the results of a retail therapy session.
The theft of parcels from outside homes is nothing new. In the past however it was considered a crime of the opportunist who just so happened to be walking past a house, spotted a package and whipped it away. Today, according to mainstream media outlets the UK is experiencing a wave of crime from so-called Porch Pirates who follow delivery vans around with the aim of stealing left parcels. Despite the “work from home if you can” advice from the government, many people don’t have a job for which they can do so, meaning that they are not in during the day to receive items. The Porch Pirate is therefore able to watch the delivery driver get no response to a knock and leave a parcel behind. Give it a minute or so, then the thief slips up to the door and whizzes off with the mystery prize. Then back on the trail of the delivery van again for more freebies - what a day of fun!
According to the reports published in the papers, some estimate that ten parcels are lost every single minute of the day, with a record £50 million-worth of packages predicted to go missing in December 2021. Couple that problem with the pressures being put on the drivers themselves to meet delivery targets - and therefore create a reluctance to take parcels back to the depot for a second attempted drop-off - and you see that the rise in online shopping over the festive period with all of the other factors mixed in has created a perfect storm for pirates. This is why many companies would prefer you to use click and collect to try and avoid having to replace missing items.
With no sign of a non-covid future, when someone wearing a mask in public raises suspicion, it’s a problem that fitting video doorbells alone will not solve. Will 2022 be the year you get more requests to fit domestic perimeter security as a result?
