DENVER (KDVR) – Porch pirates are marauding more than usual across the country, and though data is still blurry, Denver is seeing swashbuckling that already looks as bad as the worst Christmas season package thieving sprees.

Package and porch theft have grown in 2020 as widespread crimes. The pandemic shut citizens inside for months on end, causing a massive increase in the frequency and volume of deliveries left on doorsteps. Criminals have seized the chance.

Security.org tracks package thefts nationwide. The company found that as of August, one-fifth of American households have experienced porch piracy.

Police don’t track porch piracy as its own crime category, but Denver Police Department’s statistics do point in the direction of increased package thefts.

Denver police put porch piracy under the “theft” category. Three kinds of theft – theft from buildings, theft from mail, and theft from yard – would contain package theft.

Together, every month in 2020 has seen more of these three crimes than 2019. This year has in fact broken records for these three theft categories.

Going back as far as 2015, every month has seen an average 93 thefts from yard, mail, or building. This year has been the first in DPD’s data where every single month has been above the five-year monthly average.

The entire year has more closely resembled theft-heavy holiday months than it has the normal theft patterns.

These three theft categories spike around Christmas. In all but one year, the highest number of monthly thefts happened in December.

This year, the overall monthly theft average is closer to the worst of the previous five years.

The average monthly thefts for the highest-ranking months each year was 115. In 2020, the average for all months is 110. This means 2020’s theft rate for the three porch pirate categories has looked like criminal Christmas all year long.