Cambridge Officials Using GPS Tracking to Catch Alleged Porch Pirates

The holiday season is generally filled with shopping for friends, family, and perhaps scoring a few great deals for yourself. The wide popularity of Internet shopping, not to mention great deals you can find online throughout the holidays, has made package shipments a common thing in neighborhoods across the country. And it is becoming an attractive target for thieves.

You probably heard a great deal throughout the holiday season about people stealing holiday shipments and packages from front porches across the country. Police in Cambridge, Massachusetts decided to do something about it this holiday season.

Thanks to modern technology and GPS tracking, police were able to place fake packages, equipped with GPS tracking devices on properties of various properties. They were then able to track down thieves who absconded with these bait packages.

How does the tracking system used by the Cambridge Police Department work?

The GPS tracking devices inside the package alerted law enforcement officers, via text message, whenever the packages were picked up. This allowed officers to quickly locate the item and the individual who took off with it for a prompt confrontation and possible arrest of the person who stole the package to begin with.

The idea was to use many of these bait packages at various locations throughout the city so that more thieves could be caught and others, considering this particular crime, would be discouraged from taking the plunge.

It seems to have worked, at least to some degree. From January through November of the previous year there were 121 package thefts reported in Cambridge. With this policy in place, the number has dropped to only 82 during that same period of time.

However, Cambridge police do warn that those numbers could be off because most people do not report package thefts to local law enforcement.

The GPS sting operation isn’t the only tactic local law enforcement is using to help reduce the instances of package theft. They are also going door-to-door in neighborhoods that are frequently targeted and warning homeowners of the situation and what they can do to discourage package thefts.

Of course, this isn’t the only way Cambridge police have used GPS technology to discourage crime in the city. They’ve also planted GPS devices on bicycles to catch bike thieves with some degree of success as well.

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