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Exactly! If you are not a thief, why argue about whether the crime should be a felony or a misdemeanor? I know I won't lose any sleep over what happens to them.
Right - seems like a pretty easy criminal charge to totally avoid.
B.S. As usual. The USPS has been leaving packages on front porches for years.
And even if you're weren't completely wrong about this, there's still the matter of opening someone else's mail being a felony. I know you think it's completely legal because of a receptionist opening corporate mail, but guess what. It doesn't parallel.
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Originally Posted by rstevens62
True, I was just talking to a UPS driver the other day about this, he said this happens all the time, but the media never reports on it,(at the request of UPS, DHL, Fedex, etc), they dont want to risk too many people being scared of using these delivery companies.
He said the best way to avoid this ever happening, is to set up your delivery so it must be signed for, if you are not home when they come, they leave a notice, telling you where you can come pick up your package, seems to me this would solve the problem altogether, no packages on porches to be stolen in the first place!
I have been on the delivery end for 25 years and what has changed has instead of having a carrier release on the mailing label, which meant something was left on a porch, maybe hidden or maybe not because the sender asked us to is today most districts tell carriers to leave a piece unless a signature is required.
And that was before a scanner updated to the cloud with a GPS lock on the delivery point and you got a text message within seconds of the carrier leaving.
Amazon being the big elephant in the room, where I am all the legacy delivery companies and Amazon's new part time staff still get a piece of their action, and practically everything they send ask the carrier to leave it unattended. The goal being to use them since if you had to go to a post office or UPS Store you just might drive to Wal*Mart instead to cut out the delivery time lag.
There are only so many Postal Inspectors and US Attorneys to make it a federal case and the companies which want you to depend upon a delivery since they don't have to staff and stock many retail locations have it in their interest to get local police more involved in this mission. And the easiest way to do that is to get the state to make the crime or taking something from outside the front door of house as serious as the crime of stepping inside of the door of that house to take something.
I thought the value of the item stolen determines whether it's a misdemeanor or a felony. That makes stealing the chemo drugs a felony already, but leaves the $15 book a misdemeanor.
On the other hand, since it's already a felony to steal USPS mail, maybe extending that to all delivery services makes sense.
Laws and regulations swing back and forth between leniency and severe punishment based on what people want. Right now Texans seem to be tired of having their property stolen.
I thought the value of the item stolen determines whether it's a misdemeanor or a felony. That makes stealing the chemo drugs a felony already, but leaves the $15 book a misdemeanor.
That's problematic in the case of package theft, though, because the thief doesn't know how valuable the contents of the package are until he actually opens the package. So Thief #1 steals a package that contains a cheap paperback book and has committed a misdemeanor, while Thief #2 steals an identical package that happens to contain something much more expensive and he's guilty of a felony. Two different sentences for exactly the same crime: stealing a package with unknown contents (in the hopes it will contain something really valuable).
I think that's what's behind the new Texas law. Package theft off of a porch used to be rare, and when it happened it was probably done by one of the neighborhood kids. But with the rise of online shopping there's been a concurrent rise in organized adult thieves who are specializing in package theft. They're not stealing a package here and there; they're following the delivery vehicle around and stealing every package it drops off. That's a more serious level of theft, and it deserves a more serious level of punishment.
I think so too. One of the reasons I bought in a gated community (never thought I'd be the type, but there it is) was so I wouldn't have to worry about this. There's a difference between the occasional porch theft by some impulsive kid and following delivery vehicles and stealing things within minutes or even seconds of being delivered.
Does anyone know if adults will be punished for theft if they're driving kids around to do the actual taking? A few people on my neighborhood app have posted pictures of kids stealing packages, while being followed by adults in a car, presumably their parents. I wouldn't put it past more people to put kids to do their dirty work if the punishment is lenient/nonexistent.
Does anyone know if adults will be punished for theft if they're driving kids around to do the actual taking? A few people on my neighborhood app have posted pictures of kids stealing packages, while being followed by adults in a car, presumably their parents. I wouldn't put it past more people to put kids to do their dirty work if the punishment is lenient/nonexistent.
I remember the most famous episode of the TV series CHiPs, being one time that a gun was drawn in anger, that a Fagin like character was arrested. Some sort of legal stature for the treatment of children should apply even if the adult isn't arrested for theft itself. Proving beyond the reasonable doubt standard would be the biggest challenge I should think.
Right - seems like a pretty easy criminal charge to totally avoid.
Yes. The laws I find more problematic are those which have a disparate impact (who can best pay a $1,000 fine, a rich person or a poor person?) or ones where guilt has a subjective component (you are guilty because you did "excessive" XXX or "insufficient" YYY - who gets to decide what is excessive or what is insufficient? Want to bet the poor or minority person is more likely to be found guilty under such laws than the wealthy or white person is?). This one's pretty straightforward, and not one that anyone is likely to break by accident.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Metlakatla
I think so too. One of the reasons I bought in a gated community (never thought I'd be the type, but there it is) was so I wouldn't have to worry about this. There's a difference between the occasional porch theft by some impulsive kid and following delivery vehicles and stealing things within minutes or even seconds of being delivered.
One of the very best things about living in my condo building is that we have a 24/7/365 security staff, and they can sign for packages. I get all the convenience of home delivery without having to worry about porch pirates - and that is a great luxury. It shouldn't be, though.
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